IftRARY 

/EtSITY    OP 
•IFOHNIA    ^ 


MEDIEVAL    CONTRIBUTIONS 
TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 


MEDIAEVAL 
CONTRIBUTIONS    TO 
MODERN  CIVILISATION 

A    SERIES    OF    LECTURES    DELIVERED   AT 
KING'S  COLLEGE  UNIVERSITY  OF  LONDON 

EDITED  BY 

F.  J.  C.  HEARNSHAW^  M.A.  LL.D. 

PROFESSOR     OF     MEDI/EVAL     HISTORY     IN    THE     UNIVERSITY     OF     LONDON 

WITH  A  PREFACE  BY 

ERNEST   BARKER  M.A. 

PRINCIPAL  OF    king's   COLLEGE 


NEW    YORK 

HENRY  HOLT  &  COMPANY 

1922 


Printed  at  The  Ballantyne  Press 

Spottiswoode,  Ballantyne  S-  Co.  Ltd, 

Colchester,  London  cS*  Eton,  Hngland 


/t-' 


UBRARY 

m  til  IV 


PREFACE 


GIERKE,  in  an  arresting  sentence  which,  once 
read,  is  caught  and  embedded  in  the  memory, 
speaks  of  the  great  Leibniz  as  one  "  who  in  so 
many  directions  went  deeper  than  his  contemporaries, 
and  who,  perhaps  for  that  reason,  so  often  turned  his 
eyes  backward  toward  mediiEval  ways  of  thought."  If 
this  be  a  true  saying,  and  if  to  go  backward  to  the  Middle 
Ages  is  to  go  deeper  into  the  vraie  verite  des  choseSy  it  is 
a  wise  man's  duty  to  turn  mediaevalist.  And  at  any  rate 
some  of  those  who  have  hazarded  the  adventure  have 
brought  back  lessons  of  some  price  and  of  much  influence. 
Gierke  himself  has  found  in  mediaeval  theory  and  practice 
a  lesson  concerning  groups — their  spontaneous  origin 
and  growth;  their  underived  and  inherent  scope  of  action 
— which,  filtered  through  the  genius  and  the  style  of 
Maitland,  has  influenced  on  the  one  hand  ecclesiastics 
such  as  Dr  Figgis,  helping  them  to  a  vindication  of  the 
rights  of  ecclesiastical  societies,  and  on  the  other  hand 
publicists  such  as  Mr  Sidney  Webb  and  Mr  Cole,  who 
have  found  comfort  and  countenance  in  Gierke's  teaching 
for  their  advocacy  of  the  rights  and  powers  of  trade  unions. 
Above  all,  prior  to  Gierke,  of  a  more  native  strain,  with 
a  wood-note  of  his  own,  there  is  William  Morris.  He 
went  back  to  the  Middle  Ages  for  the  true  notion  of 
art,  which  for  him  was  of  the  nature  of  folk  craftsman- 
ship— "  made  for  the  people  and  by  the  people,  as  a  happiness 
to  the  maker  and  the  user."    And  he  found  in  the  Middle 


PREFACE 

Ages  not  only  the  true  notion  of  art,  but  also  the  true 
notion  of  the  social  life  of  man — the  notion  of  fellowship, 
which  he  expanded  in  The  Dream  of  John  Ball ;  the 
fellowship  which  is  heaven,  and  the  lack  thereof  hell, 
"  and  the  deeds  that  ye  do  upon  the  earth,  it  is  for  fellow- 
ship's sake  that  ye  do  them  .  .  .  and  each  one  of  you 
part  of  it." 

The  mediaeval  contributions  to  modern  civilisation, 
which  are  the  theme  of  this  book,  arc  twofold.  There 
is  the  contribution  of  the  idealised  Middle  Ages,  magnified, 
mirrored,  and  roseate  in  the  reflective  thought  of  modern 
man  concerning  the  Middle  Ages.  This  is  their  con- 
tribution as  it  appeared  to  Morris,  or  as  it  appears  to  Mr 
Belloc,  or  Mr  Chesterton,  or  the  votaries  of  guild  socialism. 
It  is  a  contribution  made  not  by  the  actual  Middle  Ages, 
but  by  a  projection  of  the  Middle  Ages  on  an  ideal  screen 
by  an  idealising  mind.  It  is  a  contribution,  but  it  is  an 
indirect  contribution ;  it  moves  the  mind  and  stirs  the 
spirit  of  men,  but  the  motion  and  the  stirring  are  those 
not  of  the  Middle  Ages  themselves,  but  rather  of  a 
certain  antiquarian  idealism — an  inverted  Utopianism, 
as  it  were,  leading  men  to  find  the  Utopia,  or  Nowhere, 
of  the  future  in  what  one  may  call  a  Never  Was  of  the  past. 
But  besides  this  indirect  and  ideal  contribution — none 
the  less  real  because  it  is  indirect  and  ideal — there  is  the 
direct  and  actual  contribution  of  the  Middle  Ages  as  they 
actually  were.  It  is  this  contribution  which  is  the  peculiar 
theme  of  this  book. 

That  contribution  is  very  real,  and  very  profound. 
The  Middle  Ages  are  the  pit  from  which  we  were  digged, 
and  the  rock  from  which  we  were  hewn.  They  are  the 
beginnings  and  the  origin  of  the  things  that  exist  to-day; 
and  "  if  one  should  look  at  things  as  they  grow  from  the 
6 


PREFACE 

beginning,"  said  Aristotle,  "it  would  be  the  best  method 
of  study."  The  ParHament  of  England,  as  Professor 
Pollard  has  lately  taught  us,  can  only  be  understood  in 
the  light  of  its  whole  evolution.  The  law  of  England 
is  embedded  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Our  architecture  is 
still  mediaeval:  if  we  build  Houses  of  Parliament  or 
churches  to-day,  we  build  something  which  perhaps 
our  mediaeval  forefathers  would  not  have  built,  but  some- 
thing, too,  which  we  should  not  have  built  as  we  have 
built  it  if  they  had  not  built  before  us.  Economically 
we  have  travelled  far  from  the  Middle  Ages :  the  open- 
field  village  with  its  common  pasture  and  common  life, 
the  guilded  town  with  its  mysteries  and  its  apprentices — 
these  things  are  gone,  and  between  them  and  us  stretches 
the  deep  abyss  cut  by  the  Industrial  Revolution  of  the 
eighteenth  century — perhaps  the  greatest  revolution  in 
the  daily  life  of  man  of  which  history  bears  record.  It 
may  be  that  here  we  have  travelled  too  far  from  the  Middle 
Ages ;  it  may  be  that,  sooner  or  later,  we  shall  turn  back 
to  some  of  their  ways.  Even  if  we  do,  the  structure  we 
build,  whatever  the  similarities  or  the  imitation,  will  be 
fundamentally  new;  and  in  the  field  of  economics  it  will 
remain  true  that  we  must  think  of  the  relation  between 
ourselves  and  the  Middle  Ages  in  terms  not  of  analogy 
or  affiliation,  but  of  difference  and  contrast. 

I  am  proud  to  add  any  words  of  mine  by  way  of  preface 
to  the  lectures  printed  in  this  volume.  The  lectures 
were  delivered  in  the  autumn  term  of  1920,  as  part  of  the 
general  scheme  of  public  lectures  at  King's  College,  which 
has  been  in  operation  (and,  I  am  happy  to  think,  in  fruitful 
operation)  for  some  years  past.  They  were  planned  by 
Professor  Hearnshaw:    seven  of  them  were   delivered   bv 

7 


PREFACE 

members    of    the    staff  of  King's    College;    three   were 
delivered,   in   a   generous   collaboration,    by   members   of 
the  staff  of  University   College  and  of  Bedford   College. 
They   bear  testimony   to   the  vitality   of  historical   study 
in  London ;    and  their  appearance  is  opportune  at  a  time 
when  the  University  of  London  is  founding  an  Institute 
of  Historical  Research— the  first  of  its  kind  to  be  founded 
in  this  country— for  the  advanced  study  of  history.     The 
study  of  history  has  a  natural  home  in  London,  rich  as  it 
is  both  in  its  own  history  and  in  its  accumulated  store  of 
the  records  of  the  general  national  life.     London  is  modern 
—sometimes,  one  feels,  terribly  modern ;   but  London  is 
also   medieval.     So  long  as  Westminster  Abbey   stands, 
so  long  are  the  Middle  Ages  incarnate  in  stone  among  us, 
and  the  age  of  faith,  and  of  the  beauty  that  was  based  on 
faith,  is  not  yet  entirely  dead.     With  its  own  past,  and  with 
its  rich  records,  London  is  a  natural  home  of  mediaeval 
studies.     But  medieval  studies  can  flourish  on   any  soil. 
They  can  flourish,  as  they  do  abundantly,  in   Manchester: 
they  can  also  flourish  across  the  seas,  in  Boston  and  in 
New  Haven,  at  the  Universities  of  Harvard  and  of  Yale. 
This  book  is  a  testimony  to  their  vigour ;   and  I  trust  that 
it  will  be  welcomed  by  mediaevalists  everywhere  for  the 
sake  of  the  subject  which  they  all  love. 

ERNEST  BARKER 


King's  College 

University  of  London 

March,  1 92 1 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.   Introductory  :  The  Middle  Ages  and  their 

Characteristic  Features  i  i 

By  F.  J.  C.  Hearnshaw,  M.A.,  LL.D. 

II.  The     Religious     Contribution     of     the 

Middle  Ages  42 

By  the  Rev.  Claude  Jenkins,  M.A.,  F.S.A.,  Librarian 
and  Chaplain  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Pro- 
fessor of  Ecclesiastical  History  in  King's  College, 
London. 

III.  Philosophy  82 

By  H.  WiLDON  Carr,  D.Litt.,  Professor  of  Philosophy 
in  King's  College,  London. 

IV.  Science  106 

By  Charles  Singer,  M.A.,  M.D.,  Lecturer  in  the 
History  of  Medicine  in  University  College,  London, 
and  m  the  University  of  Oxford. 

V.  Art  149 

By  the  Rev.  Percy  Dearmer,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Eccle- 
siastical Art  in  King's  College,  London. 

VI.  The    Middle    Ages    in    the    Lineage    of 

English  Poetry  174 

By  Sir  Israel  Gollancz,  Litt.D.,  F.B.A.,  Professor 
of  English  Language  and  Literature  in  King's  College, 
London. 

VII.   Education  190 

By  J.  W.  Adamson,  B.A.,  Professor  of  Education  in 
King's  College,  London. 


CONTENTS 

PACE 

VIII.   Society  %i^^ 

By  Hilda  Johnstone,   M.A.,  Reader  in  History  in 
King's  College,  London. 

IX.   Economics  232 

By  E.  R.  Adair,  M.A.,  Lecturer  in  Economic  History 
in  University  College,  London. 

X.  Politics  255 

By  J.   W.   Allen,   M.A.,   Professor   of  History   and 
Political  Science  in  Bedford  College,  London. 


10 


MEDI/EVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 
TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

INTRODUCTORY 

THE   MIDDLE   AGES   AND   THEIR 
CHARACTERISTIC   FEATURES 

I 

A  RE  the  Middle  Ages  worth  studying  ?  The  full 
/%  answer  to  that  question  would  involve  answers 
^  J^to  the  larger  questions,  Is  any  history  worth 
studying  ?  Is  anything  worth  studying  ?  Is  life  worth 
living  ?  This  is  not  the  place,  however,  to  enter  into  a 
discussion  of  these  vast  themes.  Something  must  be  taken 
for  granted.  It  must  be  assumed  that  existence  has  a 
meaning  and  a  value;  that  education  has  a  function  and 
an  end  ;  that  history  of  some  sort  or  other  has  its  part  to 
play  in  the  educational  scheme.  The  question  is  thus 
narrowed  down  to  the  practical  issue,  whether  or  not  the 
Middle  Ages  can  claim  attention  as  compared  with  other 
periods,  ancient  or  modern.  What  is  the  test  of  worth  in 
history  ?  How  can  we  determine  our  choice  of  time  or 
topic .'' 

Lord  Morley  provides  us  with  a  useful  criterion. 
'*  I  do  not,"  he  says,  "  in  the  least  want  to  know  what 
happened  in  the  past,  except  as  it  enables  me  to  see  my  way 
more  clearly  through  that  which  is  happening  to-day." 
That  is  a  severe  yet  perfectly  clear  and  rational  test — the 
test  of  present  utility.      It  is  severe  ;  for  in  its  demand  that 

II 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

history  should  pour  direct  illumination  through  the  opaque- 
ness of  politics,  it  refuses  to  recognise  as  adequate  several 
pleas  for  the  study  of  history  which  have  been  urged  or 
admitted  by  modern  educationists.  Even  Professor  Ray 
Lankester,  no  friend  of  history,  concedes  from  the  depths 
of  his  armchair  that  it  is  a  legitimate  form  of  amuse- 
ment ;  Messieurs  Langlois  and  Seignobos,  while  denying 
its  political  value,  maintain  its  indirect  worth  as  an  instru- 
ment of  intellectual  culture;  Principal  Caird  places  its 
chief  service  in  the  sphere  of  ethics  ;  Emerson  treasures 
it  metaphysically  as  an  interpreter  of  microcosmic  man. 
On  all  the  grounds  urged  or  admitted  by  these  eminent 
men  it  would  be  possible  to  make  out  a  good  case  for  the 
study  of  the  Middle  Ages :  their  records  are  intensely 
interesting  and  diverting ;  they  are  rich  in  thought- 
compelling  problems ;  they  are  mirrors  of  conspicuous 
and  unrelieved  virtues  and  vices  ;  they  are  radiant  with 
macrocosmic  illumination.  But  there  is  no  need  to  take 
advantage  of  these  pleas.  Lord  Morley's  test  may  with 
confidence  be  appHed  in  all  its  severity.  The  study  of 
the  Middle  Ages  can  be  defended  on  the  strictly  utilitarian 
ground  that  it  is  indispensable  to  the  up-to-date  man  of 
affairs  who  wishes  to  see  his  way  clearly  *'  through  that 
which  is  happening  to-day." 

It  is  not,  of  course,  contended  that  a  knowledge  of  the 
Middle  Ages  is  nearly  so  important  to  the  modern  poli- 
tician as  is  a  knowledge  of  more  recent  times.  The  prob- 
lems of  the  present  have  for  the  most  part  taken  shape 
in  the  crowded  and  critical  century  that  has  succeeded  the 
overthrow  of  Napoleon  and  the  Vienna  resettlement  of 
Europe :  a  close  acquaintance  with  the  history  of  the 
period  since  1815  is  undoubtedly  the  most  urgent  need  of 
the  statesman  who  desires  intelligently  to  serve  his  own 
12 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

generation  and  to  further  the  interests  of  posterity.  But 
the  study  of  the  history  of  the  nineteenth  century  reveals 
the  fact  that  no  full  comprehension  of  the  questions 
which  agitated  that  era  is  possible  unless  they  be  traced 
back  to  their  sources  in  far  earlier  times.  It  was, 
indeed,  in  the  Middle  Ages  that  most  of  them  had  their 
rise.  It  was  then  that  the  modern  national  states  were 
formed  ;  it  was  then  that  the  rivalries  of  French  and 
Germans,  Russians  and  Poles,  Magyars  and  Southern 
Slavs  began  ;  it  was  then  that  religion  became  militant 
here  on  earth,  and  that  the  secular  conflict  between  the 
Crescent  and  the  Cross  was  inaugurated  ;  it  was  then, 
in  a  word,  that  Western  civilisation  as  we  know  it  came 
into  existence.  To  those,  therefore,  who  would  penetrate 
beneath  the  surface  of  things  some  study  of  the  Middle 
Ages  is  essential. 

Yet  we  must  keep  our  sense  of  proportion.  If  we 
deprecate  undue  disparagement  of  the  Middle  Ages,  we 
must  not  make  exaggerated  claims  on  their  behalf.  We 
have  to  steer  the  sane  and  reasonable  via  media  between 
the  excessive  contempt  poured  upon  them  by  the  radical 
modernist,  and  the  uncritical  adulation  with  which  they  are 
idealised  and  idolised  by  the  modern  reactionary.  Milton 
dismissed  their  conflicts  with  the  sneer  that  they  were 
"  battles  of  kites  and  crows  "  ;  an  eighteenth-century 
rationalist  boasted  that  he  knew  nothing  of  those  ages  which 
knew  nothing  ;  even  the  Dean  of  St  Paul's  in  his  brilliant 
Romanes  lecture  on  "  The  Idea  of  Progress  "  speaks  of  them 
as  '*  the  longest  and  dreariest  set-back  that  humanity  has 
ever  experienced  within  the  historical  period  ...  a  veritable 
glacial  age  of  the  spirit."  These  utterances  represent  the 
extreme  of  depreciation.  By  those  who  adopt  this  attitude 
the  Middle  Ages  are  commonly  spoken  of  as  the  Dark 

13 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

Ages.  On  the  other  hand,  and  especially  within  the  last 
few  years,  writers  have  arisen  to  whom  the  Middle  Ages 
appear  as  the  only  ages  of  light.  Such  modern  reactionaries 
carry  appreciation  to  the  extreme  of  romance  ;  they  injure 
the  cause  of  history  by  their  excessive  claims  and  their 
irrational  prejudices.  Three  examples  must  suffice  :  they 
are  culled  from  the  recent  writings  of  Messrs  G.  K. 
Chesterton,  H.  Belloc,  and  A.  J.  Penty.  Mr  Chesterton 
in  1917  wrote  what  he  called  A  Short  History  of  England. 
Reviewing  it  in  The  Observer,  with  less  than  his  usual  felicity, 
Mr  Bernard  Shaw  commended  it  as  "  something  like  a 
history  of  England."  It  deserved  the  qualified  praise 
which  Mr  Bernard  Shaw  gave  to  it ;  but  it  deserved  it  on 
quite  other  grounds  than  those  which  he  assigned.  It  was, 
indeed,  nothing  like  a  history  of  England  ;  but  it  was  very 
much  like  Mr  Chesterton's  other  writings.  To  say  that 
is  praise  enough.  For  few  literary  men  of  the  present  day 
are  more  marvellously  skilled  in  standing  (literarily)  upon 
their  head,  and  describin»g  in  inverted  language  the  topsy- 
turvy scenes  which  they  behold  from  this  depression.  Mr 
Chesterton  perceives  in  "  popular  tradition  "  the  norm  of 
historic  truth,  and  he  proclaims  that  "  it  is  especially  in  the 
matter  of  the  Middle  Ages  that  the  popular  histories 
trample  upon  the  popular  tradition."  He  then  proceeds 
to  revive  the  "  popular  tradition  "  of  a  mediaeval  "  merrie 
England  "  free  from  Puritans,  utiHtarians,  vegetarians,  and 
teetotallers.  What  Mr  Chesterton  in  his  Short  History 
does  for  England,  that  Mr  Belloc  does  for  Christendom 
as  a  whole  in  his  Europe  and  the  Faith.  He  treats  the 
Reformation  as  a  disaster,  and  speaks  of  everything  that 
followed  it  as  "  modern  and  therefore  part  of  a  decline." 
He  idealises  the  Middle  Ages  as  the  period  of  unmitigated 
orthodoxy  and  unpolluted  beer.     He  burns  with  enthusiasm 

14 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

for  the  Roman  tradition,  both  imperial  and  ecclesiastical, 
as  it  maintained  its  dominance  throughout  the  thousand 
years  which  divided  Justinian  from  Charles  V.  Mr 
A.  J.  Penty  in  his  Guildsman  s  Interpretation  of  History 
does  not  share  Mr  Belloc's  passion  for  Rome.  On 
the  contrary,  Roman  law  (of  any  detailed  knowledge  of 
which  he  is  obviously  entirely  innocent)  is  his  bete  noire  ; 
to  its  reception  in  England  he  attributes  the  greater  portion 
of  the  evils  of  modern  capitalistic  society.  But  he  too, 
on  economic  rather  than  religious  grounds,  exalts  the 
Middle  Ages.  He  sees  in  them  the  golden  period  of 
healthy  agriculture,  artistic  industry,  and  equitable  com- 
merce, embodied  in  a  society  grouped  naturally  according 
to  its  productive  activities. 

The  truth  about  the  Middle  Ages  lies  somewhere 
midway  between  the  gloomy  depreciation  of  the  modern 
rationalists  and  the  fantastic  over-glorification  of  the  young 
idealists.  The  Middle  Ages  were  not  dark,  but  were 
illuminated  by  a  light  which  enabled  those  who  walked 
by  it  to  attain  heights  of  holiness  rarely  reached  by  men 
either  before  or  since.  They  were  not  a  mere  episode 
in  the  history  of  the  race,  a  breach  in  the  continuity  of 
classical  civilisation  ;  they  had  strongly  marked  charac- 
teristics of  their  own,  and  they  added  elements  of  incal- 
culable worth  to  the  spiritual  heritage  of  mankind.  They 
were  not  even  a  *  set-back  '  or  retrogression,  if  rightly 
viewed.  For  the  Graeco-Roman  culture  which  for  a  time 
they  submerged  was  far  from  perfect  in  its  quality', 
and  those  who  shared  its  advantages  were  few.  When 
after  a  thousand  years  of  partial  obscuration  it  re-emerged 
in  the  modern  day,  it  came  with  a  moral  content 
which  it  had  never  before  possessed,  and  it  came — by 
means    of   printed    page    and   popular    university — to   an 

15 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

immeasurably  larger  public  than  it  had  reached  in  the  old 
world.i 

But  if  it  be  true  that  the  Middle  Ages  were  not  dark, 
or  fruitless,  or  unprogressive,  it  is  also  true,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  they  were  far  removed  from  the  ideal.  They 
were  no  golden  epoch  to  which  we  should  seek  to  return. 
They  were  centuries  of  extreme  hardship,  of  chronic  war, 
of  devastating  pestilence,  of  recurrent  famine,  of  prevailing 
ignorance,  of  degrading  superstition,  of  paralysing  terror, 
of  furious  passion  and  consuming  lust.  Only  through  the 
fires  of  fierce  adversity  and  the  waters  of  penitential  dis- 
cipline did  they  purge  themselves  of  their  more  enor- 
mous faults,  and  prepare  the  world  for  the  higher  and  more 
widespread  civilisation  of  the  modern  day. 

It  is  the  purpose  of  these  lectures,  first,  to  give  some 
account  of  the  life  and  work  of  the  Middle  Ages  ;  secondly, 
to  estimate  their  permanent  contribution  to  the  culture  and 
humanity  of  the  present  day;  thirdly,  to  ask  how  far  it  is 
possible  or  desirable  in  these  late  complex  times  to  revert 
to  the  simpler  ideas  and  the  more  primitive  institutions 
of  our  mediasval   progenitors.     Can   we,   or   should   we, 

•^  The  defect  of  all  the  civilisations  which  up  to  the  present  the  earth 
has  known  is  that  they  have  been  the  possession  of  the  few.  This  is  not 
the  fault  of  the  few,  for  the  masses  of  mankind  have  never  yet  shown  them- 
selves capable  of  civilisation.  The  masses  of  mankind  have  always  been, 
and  still  remain,  barbarians.  They  see  enough  of  culture  to  perceive  that 
it  immensely  enhances  the  value  of  life,  making  it  indeed  worth  living ; 
they  emulously  and  eagerly  seek  to  capture  it ;  they  fail  to  do  so,  and  then 
in  envious  fury  they  destroy  it.  Every  great  civilisation  so  far  has  been 
overwhelmed  by  barbarians,  whether  invaders  from  without  or  insurgents 
from  within.  But  each  time  a  new  civilisation  rises  from  the  wreck  of  the 
old  it  is  shared  by  a  larger  community.  The  progress  of  humanity,  if 
cyclic,  is  continuous  :  it  is  of  the  nature  of  a  rising  tide,  each  wave  reaching 
a  point  higher  than  the  last.  History  justifies  a  sober  optimism.  A  histo- 
rian who  loses  his  faith  in  progress  ceases  to  be  a  historian  and  becomes 
a  philosopher  or  a But,  no,  I  must  not  even  appear  to  speak  dis- 
respectfully of  high  ecclesiastical  dignitaries. 

i6 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

attempt  in  any  measure  to  revive  the  patristic  theology  ; 
rehabihtate  the  scholastic  philosophy ;  restore  Byzantine 
or  Gothic  art ;  return  to  mediaeval  literary  models  ;  re- 
establish the  communal  ideab  of  monastic  education  ; 
recover  the  rigid  organisation  of  feudal  society  ;  rebuild 
the  shattered  fragments  of  the  guild  system  of  industry  ;  go 
behind  the  modern  State  with  its  monopoly  of  sovereignty, 
and  try  to  revive  the  corporations  which  in  the  Middle 
Ages  shared  with  the  political  authority  the  loyalty  of  the 
Christian  man  ? 

To  this  course  the  present  lecture  is  merely  preliminary 
and  prophetic.  It  aims  at  performing  the  function  of  the 
chorus  in  the  Greek  drama,  viz.,  that  of  introducing  the 
protagonists  and  indicating  the  scope  of  the  play.  In 
particular  it  proposes,  first,  to  define  the  Middle  Ages  ; 
secondly,  to  specify  the  chief  periods  into  which  they 
naturally  fall ;  and,  thirdly,  to  mark  some  of  their  char- 
acteristic features. 

II 

The  term  *  Middle  Ages  *  implies  a  threefold 
division  of  universal  history  into  the  sections  (i)  ancient, 
(2)  mediaeval,  (3)  modern.  This  division  was  first  adopted 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  it  has  persisted  to  the 
present  time.  Of  late,  however,  it  has  been  subjected 
to  some  severe  criticism.  Professor  Freeman,  for  example, 
objected  to  it  because  it  obscured  what  to  him  was  the 
fundamental  fact  of  history,  viz.,  its  unbroken  continuity : 
although  he  was  a  professor  of  modern  history,  he  refused 
to  be  bound  by  restrictions  in  date  ;  he  treated  as  modern 
everything  that  had  happened  since  the  call  of  Abraham  ; 
his  chief  interest  centred  round  the  eleventh-century 
Norman  conquest  of  England  ;    the  only  things  that  he 

h  17 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

regarded  as  really  ancient  and  obsolete  were  such  things 
as  the  rule  of  the  Turk  in  Europe  and  the  conservatism 
of  Bishop   Stubbs.     Again,  and  still  more  recently,   Mr 
H.  G.  Wells  in  his   Outline  of  History  has  discarded  the 
threefold  division  because  of  its  lack  of  proportion.     Mr 
Wells  begins  his  study  of  mankind  600,000  years  before 
the  Christian  era  ;  hence,  to  accept  the  traditional  classi- 
fication would   be  to   construct  a  time-chart  divided  into 
three  sections  in  the  ratio  of  4  inches  (modern),  10  inches 
(mediaeval),  and   167  yards  (ancient).     Which  is  absurd  1 
And  yet  in  practice  Mr  Wells  does  not  diverge  from  the 
normal  so  much  as  might  have  been  expected.     The  story 
of  the  unrealisable  asons  of  antiquity  to  the  time  of  the 
Roman   Empire  occupies  almost  exactly  one-third  of  his 
work ;  the  second  third  carries  us  to  the  Reformation  ;  the 
remaining  aliquot  part  is  devoted  to  the  last  four  centuries. 
The  disproportion  in  duration  of  time  is  nicely  counter- 
balanced by  the  increase  in  the  fulness  of  the  records  and 
the  growth  in  interest  and  importance.     The  old  division 
vindicates  itself  against  the  charge   of  irrationality.     As 
against  Professor  Freeman's  charge  of  schism  it  can  also 
make  a  good  defence.     For  continuity  is  by  no  means  the 
most  conspicuous  feature  of  history.     The  connexion  of 
one  civilisation  with  another  is  often  obscure  ;  it  is  a  matter 
of  faith  rather  than  of  sight ;  belief  in  it  is  a  deduction  from 
the  axioms  of  science,  and  not  an  induction  from  observed 
phenomena.     The  phenomena  which  strike  the  eye  from 
time  to  time  are  apparent  breaches  of  continuity,  and  of 
these  breaches  two  are  particularly  prominent.     The  first  is 
that  which  presents  itself  in  the  fifth  century  of  the  Christian 
era,  when  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  West  is  submerged 
by  barbarian   invaders  :  the   Europe   of  a.d.    550  is  im- 
measurably different  from  the  Europe  of  a.d.  450.     The 
18 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

second  is  that  which  presents  itself  in  the  fifteenth  century 
of  the  Christian  era,  when  the  great  geographical  discoveries 
of  Vasco  da  Gama  and  Columbus  open  up  new  worlds  to 
the  wondering  eyes  of  the  West :  the  Europe  of  a.d.  1550 
is  a  continent  changed  almost  beyond  recognition  from  the 
Europe  of  a.d.  1450.  It  would  be  a  perverted  view  of 
history  which,  in  its  effort  to  discover  the  continuity  which 
no  doubt  existed  during  these  periods  of  rapid  transition, 
ignored  the  cataclysmic  changes  which  distinguished  them, 
or  denied  the  entrance  of  new  and  decisive  factors  into  the 
evolution  of  Western  society. 

The  period  intervening  between  these  two  transitional 
eras  is  what  we  call  the  Middle  Ages.  It  is  the  millennium 
from  the  fifth  to  the  fifteenth  century  ;  from  the  fall  of  the 
Roman  Empire  in  the  West  to  the  fall  of  the  Roman 
Empire  in  the  East ;  from  the  triumph  of  Christianity  over 
classical  paganism  to  the  revolt  of  Protestantism  against 
Catholic  Christianity.  It  is  the  thousand  years  which  saw 
the  rise,  the  mighty  reign,  and  the  decline  of  the  papal 
monarchy  ;  which  witnessed  the  dominance  of  Feudalism 
and  chivalry,  whereby  the  cosmopolitan  commonwealth 
of  later  Rome  was  transmuted  into  the  new  integration 
of  the  modern  state-system  ;  which  beheld,  and  indeed 
achieved,  the  education  and  evangelisation  of  the  bar- 
barians whose  ignorant  and  demoniac  hordes  at  first  over- 
whelmed both  Latin  culture  and  the  Catholic  faith  ;  which, 
finally,  effected  the  fusion  of  Roman  and  Teuton  into  a 
single  homogeneous  society. 

No  precise  date,  of  course,  marks  either  the  beginning 
or  the  end  of  this  mediaeval  millennium.  Both  at  the  com- 
mencement and  the  termination  one  age  merged  into  the 
next  with  the  same  imperceptible  gradation  as  the  seasons  of 
the  year  pass  each  into  its  successor.     Those  who  study  the 

19 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

Middle  Ages  have  to  start  their  investigations  long  before 
the  fifth  century  in  order  that  they  may  understand  what 
was  that  world  of  pagan  antiquity  which  by  some  subtle 
alchemy  was  transformed  into  the  world  of  the  papal 
hierarchy.  Similarly  they  have  to  carry  their  researches 
far  beyond  the  limits  of  the  fifteenth  century  in  order  that 
they  may  trace  mediaeval  institutions  and  ideas  which 
persisted  for  many  generations  after  the  circumstances 
that  engendered  them  had  passed  away — many  of  which, 
indeed,  are  extant  still.  For  purposes  of  study,  in  fact, 
mediaeval  history  resolves  itself  into  three  periods.  First 
there  is  that  of  the  transition  from  the  ancient :  this  should 
be  traced  from,  at  latest,  the  principate  of  Diocletian,  and 
should  be  regarded  as  complete  only  in  the  pontificate  of 
Gregory  the  Great ;  the  years  covered  by  this  initial  phase 
are  thus  roughly  a.d.  300-600.  Secondly,  there  are  the 
seven  centuries  from  Gregory  the  Great  to  Boniface  VIII, 
the  true  heart  of  the  Middle  Ages,  a.d.  600-1300. 
Finally,  there  is  the  period  of  transition  from  the  mediaeval 
to  the  modern,  which  may  be  taken  as  falling  within  the 
two  hundred  years  a.d.  i 300-1 500.  Let  us  proceed  to 
note  a  few  of  the  characteristic  features  of  each  of  these 
three  in  turn. 


Ill 

Gibbon,  at  the  close  of  his  great  work,  attributes  the 
fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  to  the  bishops  and  the  bar- 
barians. He  had  grounds  for  this  attribution,  but  there 
was  a  third  cause  which  he  tends  to  underestimate,  viz., 
internal  decay.  Those,  indeed,  who  seek  to  explain  the 
catastrophe  which  brought  to  ruin  the  noblest  polity  that 
up  to  that  time  the  genius  of  man  had  constructed  have 
20 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

first  and  foremost  to  examine  the  fabric  of  the  Empire 
itself,  and  to  discover  the  fatal  flaws  which  existed  in  both 
its  foundations  and  its  framework.  Having  done  this 
they  may  follow  Gibbon  in  noting  how  both  the  spirit  of 
the  Christian  Church  and  its  episcopal  organisation  were 
incompatible  with  the  polytheistic  and  autocratic  empire 
of  the  Caesars,  and  in  tracing  the  process  of  the  Teutonic 
invasions  which  ultimately  broke  the  defensive  frontiers  of 
the  weakened  Roman  dominion  and  flooded  the  provinces 
with  barbarian  hordes. 

The  Roman  Empire  developed  from  a  city-state  by  a 
process  of  almost  miraculous  expansion.  True,  it  was 
built  up  through  conquest,  and  was  constructed  by  means 
of  the  military  efficiency,  indomitable  courage,  and 
patriotic  devotion  of  its  incomparable  legions.  But  no 
mere  aptitude  for  war  can  account  for  its  continuance  ; 
for  the  fact  that  it  cemented  the  subject  peoples  into  an 
organic  polity,  winning  their  allegiance  and  even  their 
enthusiastic  devotion  ;  for  the  marvellous  tranquillity  which 
it  gave  to  the  Western  world  during  a  space  of  some  four 
hundred  years — a  tranquillity  undisturbed  by  insurrection, 
almost  unbroken  by  attack  from  without.  The  perma- 
nence of  the  Roman  Empire,  its  most  remarkable  feature, 
was  due  not  so  much  to  its  belligerent  might  as  to  its 
genius  in  the  art  of  government.  It  evolved  a  superb  and 
equitable  system  of  law  ;  it  threw  open  the  privileges  of 
its  citizenship  to  its  multitudinous  provincials  ;  it  allowed 
them  a  large  measure  of  local  autonomy  ;  it  established 
peace,  maintained  order,  developed  economic  resources, 
and  rendered  possible  a  prosperity  without  precedent. 
Although  shadows  have  to  be  inserted  into  the  over- 
radiant  picture  of  the  age  of  the  Antonines  as  painted  by 
Gibbon,  it  is  still  in  the  main  true  to  say  that  "  if  a  man 

21 


MEDIEVAL   CONTRIBUTIONS 

were  called  to  fix  the  period  in  the  history  of  the  world 
during  which  the  condition  of  the  human  race  was  most 
happy  and  prosperous,  he  would,  without  hesitation,  name 
that  which  elapsed  from  the  death  of  Domitian  to  the 
accession  of  Commodus,"  i.e.,  a.d.  96-180. 

But  even  in  this  Golden  Age  of  Roman  imperialism 
grave  defects  in  the  constitution  of  the  State  and  in  the 
structure  of  society  manifested  themselves.  In  the  next 
century  (a.d.  180-284)  of  bad  rulers,  military  insurrections, 
civil  wars,  popular  disorders,  plagues,  pestilences,  and 
famines,  these  defects  became  glaringly  evident  as  radical 
and  irremediable  flaws,  fatal  to  the  well-being  and  even  to 
the  continuance  of  the  body  politic.  What  were  they  ? 
Six  may  be  singled  out  as  most  conspicuous.  First,  the 
Empire  included  within  its  far-flung  bounds  peoples  so 
various  in  race  and  in  civilisation  that  it  was  impossible 
to  weld  them  into  unity ;  in  particular,  Celt-Ivernian, 
Latin,  Greek,  Oriental  constituted  four  groups  whose 
differences  precluded  complete  fusion.  Secondly,  with  a 
constitutional  hypocrisy  strange  in  a  people  so  practical 
and  so  brave,  the  Romans  refused  to  face  the  fact  that  the 
Empire  was  not  a  republic  ;  they  persisted  in  regarding 
the  emperor  as  a  mere  composite  official  elected  jointly 
and  severally  by  the  Senate — Caesar  Augustus,  imperator, 
consul,  censor,  tribune,  pontifex  maximus,  etc.,  etc. — and 
consequently  they  made  no  rules  for  the  succession  ;  hence, 
with  increasing  frequency  and  in  growing  violence,  the 
death  of  a  princeps  precipitated  conflicts  of  factions,  furious 
rivalries,  internecine  civil  wars,  horrible  assassinations.^ 
Thirdly,  the  economic  foundations  of  the  Roman 
dominion  were  unsound  ;   nearly  half  the  population  were 

1  Between  a.d.   211   and   284   there  were   twenty-three  emperors,  of 
whom  twenty  were  murdered. 

22 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

slaves,  productive  industry  was  despised  as  servile,  taxa- 
tion pressed  with  extinguishing  severity  upon  the  middle 
class,  the  cities  were  infested  with  a  lazy  proletariat  fed 
with  doles,  agriculture  languished  on  gigantic  latijundia. 
Fourthly,  economic  unsoundness  was  matched  by  a  growing 
moral  depravity  ;  the  character  of  the  Romans  was  not 
able  to  stand  the  strain  of  early  prosperity  and  power ; 
the  austere  virtues  of  the  fathers  of  the  State  gave  place  in 
their  degenerate  descendants  to  pride,  cruelty,  extravagance, 
self-indulgence,  and  lust ;  a  debilitated  bureaucracy  had 
to  face  the  tremendous  problems  of  a  world  in  transition. 
Fifthly,  ignorance  of  science,  and  especially  of  hygiene 
and  medicine,  rendered  the  Romans  helpless  in  the 
presence  of  devastating  pestilences  which  made  their  per- 
manent abodes  in  the  fetid  slums  of  the  great  cities,  and 
issued  thence  with  increasing  frequency  to  ravage  the 
Empire.  Hence  the  population  diminished  not  merely 
relatively  as  compared  with  the  barbarians  beyond  the 
borders,  but  absolutely  with  accelerating  rapidity.  The 
horrors  of  pestilential  death,  moreover,  began  to  haunt 
the  spirits  of  the  survivors,  and  to  oppress  them  with  the 
sense  of  an  adverse  and  inevitable  fate.  Finally,  religious 
disintegration  set  in  ;  the  Romans  lost  faith  in  the  gods  on 
whose  divine  aid  their  fathers  had  trusted  in  building  up 
the  State,  and  whose  worship  formed  an  integral  part  of 
the  structure  of  the  constitution.  In  vain  did  Neoplatonic 
philosophers  strive  by  rationalist  interpretations  to  bring 
the  incredible  within  the  limits  of  belief;  the  brains  of 
paganism  were  out. 

It  was  in  these  circumstances  of  dissolution  and  decline 
that  the  Christian  Church  developed  its  doctrine  and 
organisation  within  the  Empire,  and  that  the  barbarians 
began  to  make  their  destructive  raids  across  its  frontiers. 

23 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

The  one  accelerated  the  religious  disintegration  of  Rome, 
both  by  introducing  a  cult  hostile  to  the  civic  gods,  and  by 
dissociating  worship  from  politics  and  allying  it  with  ethics. 
The  other  shattered  the  defences  of  the  Empire,  destroyed 
its  administrative  system,  and  brought  its  rotting  social 
structure  in  ruins  to  the  ground.  A  few  words  concerning 
each  of  the  two  must  suffice. 

The  Christian  Church  rose  as  heir  to  the  Jewish  tradition : 
Christ  came  as  the  Messiah  promised  to  Israel.  As  de- 
veloped by  St  Paul,  it  claimed  further  to  fulfil  the  aspirations 
of  the  Gentiles  :  it  revealed  the  Deity  whom  the  heathen  had 
ignorantly  sought.  The  Roman  Empire  at  first  regarded  the 
activities  of  the  apostles  and  evangelists  without  disfavour 
or  alarm.  The  Christians  seemed  harmless  and  innocent, 
even  if  eccentric  and  superstitious.  The  magistrates 
treated  them  indulgently,  and  protected  them  from  the 
inexplicable  fury  of  the  Jews.  But  a  change  of  attitude 
on  the  part  of  the  imperial  authorities  soon  took  place  ; 
they  speedily  discovered  that  the  new  religion  was  not  so 
innocuous  as  it  had  at  first  seemed  to  be.  It  was  exclusive 
and  intolerant,  denunciatory  of  the  other  religions  of  the 
Empire,  unwilling  to  take  its  licensed  place  as  a  lowly 
member  of  the  numerous  company  of  cults,  assertive  of 
supremacy  and  monopoly  ;  it  was  unpatriotic,  showing  no 
enthusiasm  for  the  polity  of  Rome,  withdrawing  its  votaries 
from  the  service  of  the  State,  forbidding  them  to  offer 
symbolic  incense  at  the  shrine  of  the  deified  Cassar  ;  it  was 
anti-social,  proclaiming  the  imminent  end  of  the  age, 
holding  aloof  from  secular  concerns,  shunning  theatres  and 
games,  shrinking  from  convivial  intercourse,  abstaining 
from  commerce  and  marriage,  devoting  itself  to  the 
inauguration  of  a  new  order  of  things  ;  it  was  dangerous, 
for  its  members  formed  themselves  into  churches  under 
24 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

the  authoritative  control  of  bishops,  churches  grouped 
themselves  into  archiepiscopal  federations,  and  these  again 
became  associated  and  linked  together  under  metropolitans 
and  patriarchs,  and  thus  the  Christian  community  grew 
to  be  an  im-perium  in  imperioj  aloof  from  and  antagonistic 
to  the  State.  Hence  arose  the  great  persecutions — the 
effort  of  the  State  to  suppress  doctrines  subversive  of  its 
genius  and  to  eradicate  a  parasitic  growth  which  threatened 
its  very  existence.  The  persecutions  failed,  and  deserved 
to  fail.  For  in  the  Church  and  not  in  the  Empire  was  life 
and  the  promise  of  life.  All  the  same  the  triumph  of  the 
communion  of  saints  over  the  might  and  majesty  of 
imperial  Rome  was  so  remarkable  an  event  that  it  remains 
one  of  the  most  absorbing  of  historical  problems.  The 
full  explanation  of  the  miracle  lies,  perhaps,  in  realms 
beyond  the  sphere  of  the  historian.  Yet  even  he  on  his 
low  plane  of  mundane  sequences  can  see  four  facts  which 
go  far  to  solve  the  mystery.  First,  Christianity  was,  as  a 
faith,  incomparably  superior  to  its  rivals,  whether  they  were 
the  old  theologies  of  Rome  or  the  newer  and  more  popular 
Oriental  cults  ;  it  satisfied  the  religious  sense  as  none 
of  them  did,  with  its  revelation  of  an  incarnation,  its  pro- 
clamation of  an  atonement,  its  offer  of  redemption,  and  its 
promise  of  eternal  life.  Secondly,  it  provided  a  more 
rational  explanation  of  man  and  the  universe  than  did  any 
of  the  current  philosophies,  rendering  more  intelligible  the 
mystery  of  existence,  sundering  the  veil  of  scepticism  and 
despair.  Thirdly,  it  set  before  the  eyes  of  a  world  sated 
with  bestiality  and  blood  a  new  and  lofty  ethical  ideal  : 
the  old  gods  were  non-moral  ;  the  cults  were  often  frankly 
immoral  ;  Christianity  came  to  raise  a  standard  of  exalted 
purity,  it  showed  the  ideal  already  realised  in  the  life  of 
the  Perfect  Man,  and  it  possessed  a  power  which  enabled 

25 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

it  to  cleanse  and  transform  the  debasement  of  the  vilest 
mortal  into  the  same  immaculate  sanctity.     Finally,  the 
Church  had  in  its  organisation — its  bishops  and  presbyters, 
its  synods  and  councils,  its  missionaries  and    evangelists, 
its    monks    and    anchorites — a    social    structure    of   such 
immense  stability  and  strength  that  it  was  able  to  withstand 
the  most  violent  shocks  of  all  its  foes.      The  most  formid- 
able of  the  long  series  of  assaults  made  by  the  decadent 
Empire   upon    the   growing    Church   was    that    delivered 
during  the  reign  of  Diocletian    at  the  beginning  of  the 
fourth    century.     The    completeness    of   its    failure    was, 
without  question,  one  of  the  causes  which  led  Diocletian's 
successor,  the  Emperor  Constantine,  to  make  peace  with 
the  invincible  hierarchy  and  to  recognise  Christianity  as  a 
lawful   religion   (a.d.    313).     Within   eighty  years   Chris- 
tianity had  secured  the  suppression  of  paganism,  and  had 
established  itself  as  the  only  lawful  religion  of  the  Empire. 
The  triumph  of  Christianity  within  the  Roman  Empire 
synchronised  almost  exactly  with  the  breaking  of  the  Roman 
frontiers  by  the  barbarians.     The  Visigoths  crossed  the 
Danube  in  375  ;   the  Vandals,  Alans,  and   Sueves  rushed 
the  frozen  Rhine  on  the  first  day  of  406  ;   Rome  itself  was 
sacked  in  410.     The  two  centuries  which  followed  these 
cardinal  events  were  centuries  of  rapid  transition.     The 
barbarians  spread  themselves  over  all  the  Roman  provinces 
of  the  West,  extinguishing  the  imperial  power.     Vandals 
in  Africa,  Visigoths  in  Spain,  Ostrogoths  and  Lombards 
in   Italy,   Franks  and  Burgundians  in   Gaul,   Angles  and 
Saxons   in    Britain — such   were   some   of  the   settlements 
which  displaced  the  central  administration  of  the  Caesars. 
In  the  East,  however,  the  Roman  Empire  continued  to 
maintain   itself,   strong   in   its   homogeneous    populations, 
secure  in  its  command  of  the  sea,  and  impregnably  seated 
26 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

in  its  new  fortress-capital  at  Constantinople.  Meantime 
the  Church  pursued  its  victorious  career.  In  Byzantium 
and  the  Orient,  it  is  true,  although  all  the  peoples  became 
nominally  Christian,  the  hierarchy  remained  subservient  to 
the  emperor,  and  the  Church  continued  to  be  what  Con- 
stantine  made  it,  a  department  of  the  State.  In  the  West, 
however,  a  very  different  condition  of  things  developed. 
There  the  imperial  authority  passed  away,  and  the  sole 
heir  to  the  tradition  of  Rome  was  the  Catholic  episcopate. 
To  the  bishop  of  the  Eternal  City  in  particular  fell  the 
work  of  perpetuating  the  rule  of  the  vanished  Caesars. 
He  took  their  ancient  title  of  Pontifex  Maximus,  and  with 
more  than  their  divine  authority  assumed  their  task  of 
bringing  the  lost  provinces  of  the  West  once  again  into 
obedience  to  the  sceptre  of  Rome.  He  sent  out  missionary 
preachers  and  monastic  embassies,  and  with  these  ghostly 
armies  renewed  the  triumphs  of  the  legions.  One  by  one 
the  barbarian  chieftains  who  had  settled  in  Gaul,  Britain, 
Spain,  Italy,  were  subdued  to  the  obedience  of  the  Cross 
and  brought  beneath  the  sway  of  the  papal  monarchy. 
Greatest  and  most  successful  of  all  the  early  Popes  was 
Gregory  I  (590-604).  Through  his  agency  the  Jutish 
kingdom  of  Kent,  the  Visigothic  kingdom  of  Spain,  the 
Lombard  kingdom  of  Italy,  all  were  brought  into  com- 
munion with  the  Roman  see.  From  Gregory  I  may  be 
dated  the  establishment  of  the  papal  monarchy,  and  hence 
the  beginning  of  the  Middle  Ages  proper. 

IV 

The  seven  centuries  of  the  Middle  Ages  proper  extended, 
as  we  have  already  noted,  from  the  pontificate  of  Gregory 
the  Great  to  that  of  Boniface  VIII  {d.  1303).     Their  out- 

27 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

standing  characteristic  throughout  the  wide  extent  of 
Christendom  was  the  uncontested  dominance  of  the  Church. 
The  strength  of  the  Church,  by  means  of  which  it  was 
enabled  without  effort  to  retain  its  ascendancy,  was  its 
hold  over  the  minds  and  consciences  of  the  community  at 
large.  Orientals  sated  with  sensuous  cults  ;  Greeks  weary 
of  the  uncertainties  of  philosophy  ;  Latins  disillusioned 
by  the  collapse  of  their  Empire  ;  Celt-Ivernians  eager  to 
escape  from  the  barbarities  of  their  crude  paganism — all 
sought  and  found  in  the  sublime  morality,  the  intelligible 
theology,  the  organic  vitality,  and  the  mild  beneficence  of 
Christianity  the  satisfaction  of  their  deeper  needs.  They 
accepted  the  faith  of  the  Cross  as  expounded  by  their 
clergy  as  their  guide  not  only  in  matters  celestial,  but  also 
in  matters  appertaining  to  the  brief  probationary  term 
of  earthly  existence  :  it  controlled  their  politics,  regulated 
their  industry  and  commerce,  ordered  their  social  relations, 
monopolised  their  education,  inspired  their  literature  and 
art.  Heresies  were  almost  unknown,  and  such  as  fitfully 
arose  were  easily  suppressed  :  the  older  rivals  to  the  ortho- 
dox faith,  such  as  Arianism,  had  died  down,  and  not  till 
quite  the  end  of  this  central  mediaeval  period  did  those 
formidable  precursors  of  Protestantism,  the  heresies  of  the 
Albigenses  and  the  Lollards,  make  their  appearance. 

But,  although  the  Church  was  comparatively  untroubled 
by  heresy,  she  was  rent  by  the  most  deplorable  and  irre- 
parable of  all  her  schisms,  viz.,  the  schism  of  East  from 
West,  of  Greek  Christianity  from  Latin  Christianity.  The 
process  of  the  severance  was  slow:  not  till  1054  was  it 
completed  amid  a  tempest  of  mutual  anathemas  and  ex- 
communications. But  it  was  a  process  which  began  early, 
and  it  was  due  to  causes  which  were  operative  from  the 
very  first.  There  was  a  radical  difference  of  genius 
28 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

between  the  Greek  and  the  Latin.  They  were  divided  not 
only  by  language,  but  by  a  fundamental  antagonism  of 
ideas.  The  one  was  metaphysical,  speculative,  disputa- 
tious, aesthetic,  ritualistic,  emotional ;  the  other  was  legal, 
practical,  authoritarian,  averse  from  controversy,  ready  for 
compromise,  eager  for  conquest,  zealous  in  missionary  enter- 
prise, masterly  in  organisation  and  government.  While, 
therefore,  the  patriarchs  of  Antioch  and  Alexandria,  Con- 
stantinople and  Jerusalem  involved  themselves  in  fratri- 
cidal conflicts  with  one  another,  and  remained  subservient 
to  the  imperial  yoke,  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  sole  patriarch  of 
the  Occident,  "  alien  from  their  mutations  and  unrest," 
advanced  by  slow,  undeviating  steps  toward  the  papal 
primacy.  His  was  the  see  founded  (it  was  believed)  by 
Peter  and  confirmed  by  Paul,  nurtured  by  the  blood  of 
the  martyrs,  preserved  from  error  by  an  unbroken  apostolic 
tradition  ;  his  the  mother  Church  of  the  converted  bar- 
barians, and  he  the  heir  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  Western 
Caesars.  The  claims  of  the  Papacy  were  maintained,  and 
the  triumphant  establishment  of  its  monarchy  hastened,  by 
the  devoted  labours  of  an  army  of  monks,  organised  from 
the  sixth  century  onward  under  the  rule  of  St  Benedict. 
By  the  seventh  century  the  dominion  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome 
was  as  wide  as  that  of  the  Emperor  Honorius  had  been 
at  the  end  of  the  fourth  ;  moreover,  "  regions  Caesar  never 
knew,"  beyond  the  Danube  and  the  Rhine,  and  across  the 
Irish  Sea,  were  being  brought  beneath  the  ghostly  sway 
of  Caesar's  apostolic  successor.  The  political  superiority 
which  the  Pope  still  recognised  as  vested  in  the  Byzantine 
emperor  was  becoming  a  mere  empty  suzerainty. 

The  development  of  the  dominant  Christendom — in  the 
East  under  the  Emperor,  in  the  West  under  the  Pope — 
was  suddenly  and  disastrously  interrupted  in  both  Orient 

29 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

and  Occident,  during  the  course  of  that  seventh  cen- 
tury, by  the  unheralded  assault  of  a  new  foe  of  the  same 
order  as  Christendom  itself,  viz.,  a  theocratic  monarchy. 
Mahomet — or  Muhammad,  as  he  is  now  generally  and 
more  correctly  called — lived  during  the  years  570-632. 
During  the  last  ten  of  these  years  he  formulated  his  simple 
creed,  and  organised  the  nomads  of  Arabia  into  the  fanatical 
army  of  the  faithful.  Immediately  after  the  death  of  the 
Prophet,  Islam  launched  itself  upon  divided  Christendom  ; 
overran  and  permanently  annexed  Syria,  Egypt,  and  North 
Africa  ;  conquered  the  bulk  of  Spain  ;  and  was  checked 
only  at  Constantinople  (717)  and  on  the  field  of  Tours 
in  Gaul  (732).  Not  until  the  end  of  the  eighth  century 
had  the  first  energy  of  Islam  spent  itself;  not  until  the 
days  when  Haroun-al-Raschid  ruled  in  Bagdad,  and  Charle- 
magne in  Aix-la-Chapelle,  was  a  balance  of  power  achieved. 
In  A.D.  800,  however,  something  of  stability  seemed  to 
have  been  recovered.  The  conquests  of  the  Crescent  had 
been  completed,  and  the  empire  of  the  caliphs  had  begun 
to  disintegrate  ;  the  emirate  of  Cordova  had  repudiated 
the  authority  of  Bagdad,  so  that  Spain  formed  a  separate 
Moslem  state.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Franks  whose 
swords  had  saved  Western  Christendom  at  Tours  had 
established  a  hegemony  over  almost  all  the  Catholic  world, 
and  their  king,  Charles  the  Great,  or  Charlemagne,  had 
been  called  upon  by  the  Pope  to  resume  the  title  and  power 
of  Roman  Emperor.  The  coronation  of  Charles  as  Caesar 
Augustus  on  Christmas  Day  a.d.  800  involved  on  the  part 
of  the  Pope  the  formal  repudiation  of  his  antique  depen- 
dence upon  the  Byzantine  ruler.  Thus  the  schism  of 
Christendom  was  deepened,  and  Charlemagne  found  him- 
self (to  his  annoyance  and  regret)  in  conflict  with  his 
compeer  at  Constantinople.      In  these  circumstances  poli- 

30 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

tical  equilibrium  was  secured  and  peace  maintained  by 
a  couple  of  unnatural  alliances.  The  Byzantine  Caesar 
fostered  the  revolt  of  the  Emir  of  Cordova  against  the 
Commander  of  the  Faithful  ;  while  Haroun-al-Raschid  on 
his  part  sent  friendly  elephants  to  Charlemagne,  entrusted 
him  with  the  keys  of  the  holy  places  in  Jerusalem,  and 
recognised  him  as  protector  of  pious  pilgrims.  Almost  the 
whole  of  the  known  world  was  at  the  opening  of  the  ninth 
century  divided  into  these  four  states,  thus  grouped  into 
two  alliances  ;  in  the  Christian  West  the  only  important 
power  that  lay  outside  was  the  English  kingdom  of  Mercia, 
which  had  just  then  been  brought  to  the  height  of  its 
power  by  King  Offa  (d.  a.d.  796). 

The  novel  tranquillity  which  the  strong  and  wise  rule 
of  Charlemagne  secured  throughout  his  extensive  empire 
seemed  to  promise  a  return  to  long-vanished  conditions 
of  material  prosperity  and  intellectual  advance.  The 
restoration  of  the  Fax  Romana  was  a  prelude  to  a  remark- 
able renaissance  of  Latin  culture.  The  Latin  language 
recovered  something  of  its  pristine  purity  ;  schools  were 
founded ;  literary  men  were  encouraged ;  the  Church 
was  reformed  ;  the  law  was  humanised.  It  was  possible 
for  men  to  believe  that  the  painful  episodes  of  barbarian 
incursions  and  infidel  onslaughts  were  over,  and  that  the 
pacific  sway  of  the  Eternal  City  was  about  to  be  resumed 
under  the  joint  authority  of  the  Holy  Father  and  his 
anointed  Emperor.  But,  alasl  the  Carolingian  dawn  was 
premature.  New  bands  of  marauders,  terrible  in  military 
might,  ferocious  in  hostility  to  Christendom,  untouched  by 
any  reverence  for  the  name  or  civilisation  of  Rome,  were 
about  to  hurl  themselves  upon  the  devoted  West.  First, 
from  their  Scandinavian  strongholds  came  the  Vikings  to 
plunder  and  to  slay.      The  great  Charles  himself  before  he 

31 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

died  (814)  had  seen  the  sails  of  their  warships  off  the 
Frisian  coast,  and  had  heard  how  their  pagan  hosts  had 
ravaged  the  monasteries  and  bishoprics  of  Northern 
England.  Under  his  weaker  successors,  Louis  the  Pious 
and  Charles  the  Fat,  the  Christian  empire  was  devastated 
by  them  from  end  to  end,  and  the  reviving  Latin  culture 
ruthlessly  stamped  out.  Secondly,  and  simultaneously, 
the  Magyars — a  Turanian  people  akin  to  the  Huns,  the 
Avars,  the  Bulgars,  and  the  Turks — advanced  up  the 
Danube,  planting  themselves  in  Hungary  and  reaching  as 
far  as  Italy  and  Burgundy  in  their  raids.  Thirdly,  Saracen 
pirates,  released  from  restraint  by  the  break-up  of  the 
caliphate,  wasted  all  the  coasts  of  the  Mediterranean. 
Finally,  the  Slavs  from  beyond  the  Oder  and  the  Vistula 
crept  westward  toward  the  Elbe  and  the  Rhine,  penetrating 
and  percolating  wherever  they  found  Teutonic  resistance 
weak.  If  any  part  of  the  Middle  Ages  deserves  the  name 
of  '  dark  '  it  is  the  two  centuries  a.d.  800-1000  which 
intervened  between  the  coronation  of  Charlemagne  and 
the  conversion  of  the  Magyar  king  Stephen.  During  the 
longer  portion  of  that  distressful  period  central  government 
entirely  collapsed  ;  the  forces  of  Christendom  were  disin- 
tegrated, and  there  was  none  to  whom  an  abbey  plundered 
or  a  town  besieged  could  look  for  protection  or  redress. 
Each  locality  was  driven  to  organise  its  own  defence,  or 
to  prepare  for  perdition.  In  these  circumstances  of  dire 
necessity  FeudaHsm,  which  was  primarily  a  military  system, 
sprang  up  spontaneously,  and  by  its  efficiency '  achieved 
the  salvation  of  Europe.  Its  strength  lay  in  its  walled 
castles  and  its  panoplied  knights ;  the  massive  fortifi- 
cations of  the  one  provided  islands  of  secure  refuge  amid 
the  floods  of  invasion  ;  the  serried  hosts  of  the  other  after 
a  terrific  struggle  put  a  term  to  the  tide  of  pagan  depre- 
ss 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

dation.  By  the  millennial  year  of  the  Christian  era  the 
horror  of  darkness  was  past ;  Feudalism  had  done  its  great 
work  ;  the  Northmen  had  become  civilised  members  of 
the  Christian  community  ;  the  Magyars  had  made  their 
submission  to  the  Papacy  ;  the  Saracen  pirates  were  being 
met  and  checked  on  their  own  element  ;  the  encroach- 
ments of  the  Slavs  were  effectually  prevented  by  a  barrier  of 
military  marks.  Thus  the  eleventh  century  opened  with  a 
brightness  and  a  hopefulness  unknown  for  many  generations. 
The  three  hundred  years  a.d.  i 000-1300  were  un- 
doubtedly the  culmination  and  crown  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
It  was  in  this  period  that  the  papal  monarchy,  under  Gregory 
VII  (1073-85)  and  Innocent  III  (1198-1216),  reached 
the  height  of  its  magnificence  and  power.  Under  the 
suzerainty  of  the  Papacy  Western  Europe  was  obviously 
and  consciously  a  unit.  Its  episcopate,  its  monastic  orders, 
its  chivalry,  its  schools  and  its  new  universities,  its  Latin 
literature  and  its  canon  law — all  were  cosmopolitan,  and 
all  took  their  tone  from  Rome.  The  great  enterprise  of 
the  period,  viz.,  the  Crusades,  was  also  a  cosmopolitan 
adventure,  the  effort  of  Christendom  as  a  whole  to  defeat 
Islam  with  its  own  weapons  of  sword  and  flame,  the  attempt 
to  recover  for  the  Cross  the  regions  too  long  usurped  by 
the  Crescent,  and  to  restore  to  the  service  of  the  Church 
the  Holy  Land  where  Christ  had  lived  and  taught.  This 
strange  enterprise,  which  evoked  the  wildest  enthusiasm 
throughout  the  still  half-barbaric  West,  was  accompanied 
by  many  other  symptoms  of  reviving  vitality,  rising  spirit, 
and  renewed  activity.  New  monastic  orders — Cluniac, 
Cistercian,  Carthusian — requickened  the  flagging  zeal  of 
the  ancient  Benedictine  rule.  Communities  of  a  still  more 
novel  kind,  orders  of  friars — Franciscan,  Dominican, 
Carmelite — carried  the  beneficence  or  the  orthodoxy  of  the 

c  33 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

Church  among  the  outcast  and  the  lost.  The  imagination 
of  the  faithful  awoke;  the  dream  of  Gothic  architecture 
stirred  their  souls,  and  Europe  put  on  her  glorious  white 
robe  of  cathedral  and  abbey  churches.  The  climax  of  this 
great  epoch  of  mediaeval  splendour  was  reached  when  the 
princely  Innocent  III  called  the  Lateran  Council  in  12 15. 
It  was  attended  by  five  hundred  bishops  and  by  eight 
hundred  abbots  and  priors.  During  a  session  of  less  than 
three  weeks,  with  high  enthusiasm  and  striking  unanimity, 
it  passed  seventy  decrees  or  canons,  many  of  them  of  first 
importance,  for  the  comfort  of  the  Church  and  the  welfare 
of  the  world.  The  century  which  opened  with  the  ponti- 
ficate of  Innocent  III  saw  before  its  close  that  mirror  of 
mediaeval  kingship,  the  reign  of  St  Louis  of  France  ;  it 
saw  also  the  mighty  labours  of  St  Thomas  Aquinas,  who 
raised  in  his  marvellous  Summa  the  flawless  temple  of 
mediaeval  thought ;  it  saw,  too,  as  it  ended,  the  incom- 
parable Dante  pondering  those  themes,  sublime  and 
profound,  which  make  his  Divine  Comedy  the  most  perfect 
of  all  embodiments  of  the  spirit  of  the  Middle  Ages  at  its 
best.  But  contemporary  with  Dante  was  Pope  Boniface 
VIII,  under  whom  the  papal  monarchy  reached  at  once 
the  summit  of  its  pretension  and  the  depth  of  its  degrada- 
tion. At  the  splendid  jubilee  of  1300,  when  the  devout 
of  all  Christendom  flocked  in  their  myriads  to  the  shrines 
of  the  Apostles,  the  haughty  pontiff  seemed  to  touch  a 
height  of  power  such  as  Innocent  III  had  never  reached. 
But  by  that  time  the  foundations  of  pontifical  autocracy 
had  been  undermined,  and  only  three  years  later,  when  the 
hosts  of  pious  pilgrims  had  dispersed,  and  the  Pope  was 
left  lonely  among  his  enemies  at  Anagni,  the  authority 
which  had  controlled  the  Middle  Ages  was  defied  and 
overthrown. 

34 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 


The  dramatic  humiliation  of  Pope  Boniface  VIII  at 
Anagni  in  1303  by  the  agents  of  PhiUp  IV  of  France  was 
merely  a  striking  manifestation  to  the  world  of  the  fact 
that  for  a  long  time  forces  antagonistic  to  mediaeval  Christen- 
dom had  been  sapping  the  bases  of  the  papal  monarchy. 
The  thirteenth  century  had  been  full  of  presages  of  change. 
The  Papacy  itself  had  become  involved  in  mortal  conflict 
with  its  creature,  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  and  in  the 
course  of  the  struggle  had  prostituted  its  spiritual  powers 
to  the  basest  ends  of  secular  ascendancy.  The  unity  of 
Christendom,  shattered  by  this  suicidal  schism,  had  been 
further  rent  by  the  growth  of  national  particularism  in 
England,  Scotland,  France,  Spain,  Germany,  and  Italy  : 
the  form  of  the  modern  state-system  had  started  to  shape 
itself  in  embryo.  A  new  intellectual  ferment  had  begun  to 
portend  the  close  of  the  ages  of  faith  ;  a  new  social  unrest 
had  commenced  to  threaten  the  existence  of  the  feudal 
order.  In  the  fourteenth  century  the  new  influence  became 
dominant,  and  from  the  fall  of  Boniface  VIII  we  may  date 
the  definite  transition  from  mediaeval  to  modern  times. 

What  were  the  causes  of  this  subtle  but  irresistible 
change  ?  They  were  many  and  various  ;  but  the  following 
stand  out  as  eminent.  First,  the  Crusades  had  brought 
the  semi-barbarians  of  the  W^est  into  contact  with  the  more 
highly  cultivated  denizens  of  the  East.  The  rude  knights 
of  chivalry  had  found  to  their  amazement  that  the  infidels 
against  whom  they  were  launched  were  not  only  soldiers 
equal  to  themselves  in  valour,  but  were  also  men  of  a 
culture  far  superior  to  their  own.  Fanatical  hostility  had 
given  place  to  respect  and  even  friendship,  and  not  a  few 

3S 


MEDIi^VAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

Crusaders  had  accepted  Islam   as  a  purer   faith  than    the 
debased   CathoHcism  of   their  day.     A    new  tolerance,    a 
new  scepticism,  a  new  eclecticism,  had  resulted  from  this 
intermingling  of  East  and  West  :   the  leader  of  the  sixth 
Crusade   is    credited    (or   debited)   with   the  remark  that 
Moses,  Christ,  and  Mahomet  were  all  equally  impostors. 
Secondly,  as  a  result  of  the  Crusades  and  of  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Christian  kingdom  of  Jerusalem,  commerce 
between  Asia  and  Europe  was  immensely  developed.     New 
trade  routes  were  opened  up  ;  Christian  seamen  secured 
the  command  of  the  Mediterranean  ;  in  Italy,  Germany, 
France,  the  Netherlands,  and  England,  towns  and  cities  rose 
in   importance,    and   a   wealthy   merchant   class    began   to 
challenge  the  monopolies  of  nobles  and  of  priests.     Thirdly, 
by  way  of  Syria,  Egypt,  Sicily,  and  Spain,  the  learning  of 
the  Arabs — mainly   the   treasured  remnants  of  the  herit- 
age of  classical    antiquity — began    to   reach    the   scholars 
of  the  Christian  West.     Mathematics,  astronomy,  physics, 
chemistry,  logic,  philosophy,  medicine — all  were   infused 
with  a  new  vitality  as  the  speculations  and  discoveries  of 
ancient  Hellenic  sages  and  recent  Arabian  savants  came 
to  be  known.      In  particular  the  recovery  of  the  lost  works 
of  Aristotle,   with  the  commentaries  thereon  of  Avicenna 
and  Averroes,  marked  the  opening  of  a  new  era  in  European 
thought.      It  was  from  the  fusion  of  Aristotelian  philosophy 
with  Augustinian  theology  that  Scholasticism,  the  supreme 
achievement    of    the    mediaeval    mind,     was     developed. 
Scholasticism,  at  any  rate  in  its  dominant  Thomistic  form, 
was   orthodox   enough ;  but   the   mental   gymnastics   and 
moral  contortions  which  it  encouraged  undoubtedly  trained 
the  nascent  intellect  of  Christendom  for  its  approaching 
revolt  against  ecclesiastical  authority.     Last  of  all  came  the 
general  classical  revival,  due  in  part  to  the  migration  of 

36 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

Greek  scholars  from  the  doomed  Byzantine  empire.  There 
was  not,  of  course,  as  used  to  be  supposed,  any  sudden 
stampede  or  descent  of  parchment-laden  literati  consequent 
upon  the  fall  of  Constantinople  in  1453.  The  movement, 
indeed,  was  terminating  rather  than  beginning  in  the 
middle  of  the  fifteenth  century.  For  more  than  three 
generations  it  had  been  in  process,  as  the  Ottoman  Turks 
forced  their  relentless  path  toward  the  coveted  capital. 
By  way  of  Southern  Italy,  where  Greek  was  still  a  spoken 
language,  the  ancient  culture  had  penetrated  the  mediaeval 
world,  bringing  back  the  pagan  spirit  and  the  Hellenic 
view  of  life.  But  the  classical  revival  was  only  in  part 
Byzantine  in  origin.  It  was  primarily  a  spontaneous  up- 
rising of  the  secular  genius  of  the  West  itself.  So  early 
as  the  Council  of  Constance  (141 5)  the  diligent  search  for 
antique  manuscripts  had  begun,  and  the  monastic  libraries 
of  Europe  were  being  ransacked,  with  amazing  results, 
by  scholars  eager  to  recover  the  forgotten  treasures  of  pre- 
Christian  Rome. 

The  advent  of  the  modern  spirit — secular,  ration- 
alistic, individual,  adventurous,  curious,  anti-clerical,  and 
often  anti-Christian — was  marked  by  a  change  of  attitude 
toward  the  universe  and  man.  No  longer  was  Nature 
regarded  as  inherently  evil,  or  the  descendants  of  Eve 
as  essentially  corrupt.  No  more  were  asceticism,  self- 
abnegation,  penance,  withdrawal  from  the  world,  mortifica- 
tion of  the  flesh,  conflict  with  the  Devil,  felt  to  be  the 
ways  of  sanity  and  sanctity.  The  monasteries  began  to 
languish  for  lack  of  inmates.  The  study  of  scholastic 
philosophy  and  theology  declined  as  the  youth  of  Europe 
turned  their  awakened  minds  to  the  reading  of  romances, 
the  writing  of  lyrics,  the  pursuit  of  science.  The  recovery 
of  the   geographies   of   Eratosthenes   and   Ptolemy  ;     the 

37 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

invention  of  printing,  which  placed  knowledge  within  the 
reach  of  the  growing  laity  of  the  middle  class  ;  improve- 
ments in  shipping  and  in  the  instruments  of  navigation, 
opened  the  way  for  Vasco  da  Gama  and  Columbus  to  make 
their  adventurous  voyages.  New  oceans  and  unsuspected 
continents  were  brought  within  the  ken  of  wondering 
Christendom,  and  the  cosmography  of  the  mediaeval 
Church  was  shown  to  be  false  and  even  absurd.  Soon 
the  astronomical  revelations  of  Copernicus  demonstrated 
the  fact  that  the  Ptolemaic  conception  of  the  universe, 
dominant  throughout  the  Middle  Ages,  was  hopelessly 
wrong,  and  that  the  earth,  so  far  from  being  the  centre 
of  all  things,  was  but  an  insignificant  planet  revolving 
round  a  minor  star.  The  reduction  of  man  to  stellar 
insignificance,  and  the  discovery  of  the  infinite  abysses 
of  space,  exploded  all  the  axioms  and  postulates  of  mediasval 
thought,  and  shook  the  very  foundations  of  the  established 
theology.  Unnumbered  and  enormous  heresies  began 
to  display  themselves  throughout  Christendom.  For  the 
first  time  in  her  long  history  the  Catholic  Church — 
weakened  by  the  Babylonish  Captivity  of  the  Papacy, 
torn  by  the  Great  Schism,  paralysed  by  corruptions  which 
the  Conciliar  Movement  was  powerless  to  reform, 
bewildered  by  the  rationalism  of  the  Renaissance — was 
unable  to  meet  them  and  stamp  them  out.  In  vain  did 
new  orders  of  preachers  restate  and  defend  Catholic 
dogma  ;  in  vain  did  the  papal  Inquisition  organise  itself 
to  burn  the  pollution  out ;  in  vain  did  crusades  and 
dragonnades  endeavour  to  drown  in  blood  the  monstrous 
brood  of  devilish  phantasies  which  haunted  the  souls  of 
the  sectaries.  All  that  denunciation.  Inquisition,  and 
massacre  accomplished  was  to  inflame  dissent  from  the 
Church    into    a    passion    of   implacable    hatred,    and    to 

38 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

obliterate  the  memory  of  a  millennium  of  beneficence  in 
the  more  recent  recollection  of  bloody  persecution.  The 
way  for  the  new  schism  of  the  Protestant  Reformation  was 
made  straight. 

VI 

The  Renaissance,  with  its  new  representation  of  life, 
and  the  Reformation,  with  its  irremediable  disruption  of 
Catholic  Christendom,  marked  the  end  of  the  Middle 
Ages  in  Western  Europe.  The  thousand  years  thus 
terminated  had  displayed  many  notable  features.  They 
had  been  dominated  by  religion  ;  the  powers  of  the  world- 
to-come  had  been  supreme  ;  God  and  the  Devil,  angels  and 
demons,  the  saved  and  the  damned,  had  been  more  real  and 
potent  than  persons  visible  to  the  mortal  eye.  The  epoch 
had  been  characterised  by  an  extreme  credulity  which 
no  miracle  could  shock,  and  no  marvel  of  magic  shake. 
No  idea  of  any  order  in  nature,  or  any  conception  of  the 
sequence  of  cause  and  effect,  awoke  a  scientific  scepticism 
in  the  mediaeval  mind,  or  led  the  faithful  to  doubt  the 
efficacy  of  relics  and  rituals.  Movement  of  all  sorts  had 
been  slow ;  stability  great ;  pain,  peril,  and  death  had 
been  constant  companions  ;  life  had,  as  a  rule,  been  hard 
and  short.  Yet,  in  spite  of  all,  the  Middle  Ages  had  had 
elements  of  singular  charm,  irresistible  fascination,  incon- 
testable greatness.  In  particular  they  had  been  eminent 
for  their  corporate  consciousness,  for  their  sense  of  com- 
munity, for  the  way  in  which  their  representative  men — 
the  builders  of  their  cathedrals,  the  formulators  of  their 
creeds,  the  framers  of  their  ideals — had  been  content  to 
remain  anonymous,  sinking  their  individuality  in  the 
general  life.      Christendom  had  been  a  reality  ;   and  among 

39 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

its  members  the  greatest  realists  had  been  those  who 
proclaimed  it,  with  all  its  imperfections,  as  the  ideal  City 
of  God. 

It  was  necessary  and  inevitable  that  the  Middle  Ages 
should  pass  away.  They  were  a  time  of  tutelage,  and  the 
growing  intellect  of  Europe  could  no  longer  remain  subject 
to  authorities  whose  spirit  was  alien  from  the  genius  of 
the  modern  world.  But  although  they  passed  away,  they 
had  not  been  vain  or  fruitless.  On  the  contrary,  they  had 
been  rich  and  full ;  and  they  left  a  priceless  heritage  to 
succeeding  ages.  If  we  are  asked  what  their  main  con- 
tributions were,  perhaps  we  may  answer:  in  religion^  the 
truth  that  the  things  of  the  Spirit  are  of  supreme  impor- 
tance; in  philosophy^  that  there  is  an  infinite  disparity  be- 
tween appearance  and  reality,  between  the  substance  and  its 
accidents  ;  that  the  ideal  is  the  real,  and  that  the  perfect 
is  the  true ;  in  science^  that  phenomena  are  but  mani- 
festations of  occult  powers  ;  in  art.^  that  the  supreme  forms 
of  beauty  are  those  that  reveal  purity,  truth,  and  limit- 
less aspiration ;  in  literature,  that  the  language  of  the 
people  is  the  proper  vehicle  for  thought  and  emotion  ;  in 
education,  that  the  true  aim  of  all  training  is  to  fit  a 
man,  not  to  earn  his  own  living,  but  to  serve  his  fellows 
and  to  worship  his  Maker  ;  in  society,  that  all  men  are 
equal  in  the  sight  of  the  Highest,  and  that  the  humblest 
creature  has  an  infinite  worth  ;  in  economics,  that  work 
is  a  source  of  dignity  and  not  of  degradation,  and  that 
justice  should  determine  wages,  prices,  and  all  the 
industrial  relations  of  man  to  man  ;  in  politics,  that  all 
tribes  and  nations  are  members  of  a  greater  community, 
that  the  source  of  every  valid  human  authority  is  divine,  and 
that  power  is  a  trust  for  which  a  solemn  account  will  one 
day  have  to  be  rendered  before  the  judgment-seat  of  God. 
40 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

These  are  contributions  to  modern  civilisation  by  no 
means  negligible  in  value,  and  most  of  them  are  purely 
mediaeval,  free  from  all  admixture  of  elements  drawn  from 
the  civilisation  of  pagan  antiquitv.  It  will  be  the  task 
of  the  remaining  lectures  of  this  course  to  expand  this 
theme,  and  to  trace  the  streams  of  influence  one  by  one. 
I  hope,  however,  that  even  this  superficial  introductory 
sketch  has  made  clear  the  truth  that  the  Middle  Ages, 
with  all  their  barbarism  and  crudity,  were  not  a  mere 
hiatus  in  the  progress  of  Western  civilisation,  but  an 
integral  and  essential  part  of  the  evolution  of  the  modern 
world. 

F.  J.  C.  Hearnshaw 


41 


II 

THE  RELIGIOUS  CONTRIBUTION  OF  THE 
MIDDLE  AGES 

HORACE  WALPOLE  quotes  a  story  of  a  Floren- 
tine ambassador  in  the  time  of  the  Commonwealth 
who  wrote  to  his  Court  :  "  Some  say  the  Protector 
is  dead,  others  say  he  is  not  :  for  my  part  I  believe  neither 
the  one  nor  t'other."  ^  It  is  at  least  tempting  to  apply  the 
mot  by  substituting  for  the  body  of  the  Lord  Protector 
the  spirit  of  the  Middle  Ages.  And  certainly  in  regard 
to  the  formative  influences  of  our  later  age  the  historical 
student  may  well  tread  warily  where  masters  disagree. 
From  Freeman  we  learn  that  "  in  our  own  history,  above  all, 
every  step  in  advance  has  been  at  the  same  time  a  step 
backward.  It  has  often  been  shown  how  our  latest  con- 
stitution is,  amidst  all  external  differences,  essentially  the 
same  as  our  earliest,  how  every  struggle  for  right  and 
freedom  from  the  thirteenth  century  onwards  has  simply 
been  a  struggle  for  recovering  something  old." "  Looking 
from  a  different  angle.  Lord  Acton  tells  us  that  "  the 
modern  age  did  not  proceed  from  the  mediasval  by  normal 
succession,  with  outward  tokens  of  legitimate  descent. 
Unheralded,  it  founded  a  new  order  of  things,  under  a 
law  of  innovation,  sapping  the  ancient  reign  of  continuity. 
...   It  was  an  awakening  of  new  life  ;   the  world  revolved 

^  Letters,  ed.  Toynbee,  iii,  262  (Clarendon  Press,  1904). 

2  Historical  Essays,  Fourth  Scries,  p.  253  (Macmillan,  1892). 

42 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

in  a  different  orbit,  determined  by  influences  unknown 
before."  ^  Yet  he  also  adds  the  saving  caution  that  **  we 
can  found  no  philosophy  on  the  observation  of  four  hundred 
years,  excluding  three  thousand."^ 

These  considerations  may  serve  for  warning  or  encour- 
agement according  to  the  temper  of  the  student  as  he 
turns  to  the  subject  of  the  religious  contribution  of  the 
Middle  Ages  to  our  modern  civilisation,  whatever  that 
somewhat  elusive  expression  may  be  interpreted  to  mean.  -</ 

Peculiar  difficulties  attach  to  any  estimate  at  a  time  when 
theories  of  civilisation  are  under  revision,  and  when  the 
bases  of  religious  beliefs  and  practices,  no  less  than  of 
political  institutions,  have  had  to  submit  to  the  shock  of 
a  great  war,  and  are  still  being  tried  by  the  "  hot  spirit 
drawn  out  of  the  alembick  of  hell  "  in  a  sense  far  more 
terrible  than  any  conceived  of  by  Edmund  Burke.  An 
investigation  that  is  to  be  fruitful  must  at  any  rate  in  inten- 
tion be  fair  ;  but  in  the  study  alike  of  theological  and 
political  development  and  of  morals  and  opinions  nearly 
every  step  has  been  attended  in  the  past  oftentimes  by 
misconception,  not  infrequently  by  prejudice.  In  our 
own  day  to  say  of  any  one  that  he  has  a  mediaeval  mind 
will  seldom  be  the  language  of  courtesy,  still  less  of  admira- 
tion ;  and  we  have  need  rather  forcibly  to  remind  ourselves 
that  a  declaration  of  war  against  ecclesiastical  obscurantism 
is  not  even  in  a  modern  publicist  an  irrefragable  evidence 
of  the  attainment  of  sweetness  and  light. 

It  is  said  that  one  of  the  maxims  which  Lord  Acton 
impressed  upon  his  pupils  at  the  first  opportunity  is  that 
"  history  is  the  true  demonstration  of  religion,"'  and  Lord 

»   The  Study  of  History,  pp.  8,  9  (Macmillan,  1896).  *  Il>iJ.,  p.  31. 

^  Letters  of  Lord  Acton  to  Mary  Gladstone.     Introductory  Memoir  by 
Herbert  Paul,  p.  Ii  (Macmillan,  191 3). 

43 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

Bryce  in  a  notable  passage  has  given  us  a  striking  illus- 
tration from  Acton  himself:  "  He  spoke  for  six  or  seven 
minutes  only  ;  but  he  spoke  like  a  man  inspired,  seeming 
as  if,  from  some  mountain  summit  high  in  air,  he  saw 
beneath  him  the  far-winding  path  of  human  progress  from 
dim  Cimmerian  shores  of  prehistoric  shadow  into  the 
fuller  yet  broken  and  fitful  light  of  the  modern  time. 
The  eloquence  was  splendid,  but  greater  than  the  eloquence 
was  the  penetrating  vision  which  discerned  through  all 
events  and  in  all  ages  the  play  of  those  moral  forces,  now 
creating,  now  destroying,  always  transmuting,  which  had 
moulded  and  remoulded  institutions,  and  had  given  to 
the  human  spirit  its  ceaselessly-changing  forms  of  energy. 
It  was  as  if  the  whole  landscape  of  history  had  been  sud- 
denly lit  up  by  a  burst  of  sunlight."  ^ 

There  are  lights  and  shadows  in  the  picture  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  as  of  other  times.  If  we  turn  to  a  general 
European  history  like  that  of  Lavisse  and  Rambaud  ^  we 
shall  see  in  its  main  divisions  some  of  the  reasons,  though 
not  all.  The  first  volume  outlines  eight  centuries  from 
the  fourth  to  the  eleventh  and  is  called  Origins;  the  second 
deals  with  a  century  and  three-quarters  (109 5- 12  70)  under 
the  title  Feudal  Europe.  The  Crusades  \  the  triptych  or 
trilogy  is  completed  by  a  volume  carrying  the  narrative 
to  1492  and  styled  The  Formation  of  Great  States.  The 
next  instalment  covers  less  than  seventy  years  (i 492-1 559) 
oi  Renaissance  and  Reform^  while  the  fifth,  from  1 559-1 648, 
is  a  melancholy  if  inevitable  sequel  of  the  Re-formation — 
The  Wars  of  Religion.  It  is  a  far  cry  from  the  Edict  of 
Milan  (313)  or  the  capture  of  Rome  by  Alaric  (410)  to  the 

1  Studies  in  Contemporary  Biography,  pp.  396-7  (Macmillan,  1903). 
*  Histoire  Gcnerale  du  IF"  Siec/e  a  nos  Jours.     Twelve  volumes  (Paris  : 
Armaiid  Colin,  1 893-1904). 

44 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

Reformation  or  to  the  Peace  of  Westphalia  (1648),  and 
much  may  be  expected  to  have  happened  in  twelve  or 
thirteen  centuries.  But  the  point  which  suggests  itself 
to  our  notice  is  the  interpenetration  of  the  ecclesiastical 
and  secular  policies,  the  apparent  leavening  of  the  Church 
by  the  World.  Yet  at  the  outset  of  our  inquiry  a  caution 
is  necessary.  There  are  no  water-tight  compartments  in 
History,  however  readily  we   allow  ourselves   to   abstract 

*  epochs  *  for  convenience  and  dignify  them  by  the  title  of 

*  special  periods.*  We  are  accustomed  to  speak  of  '  The 
Dark  Ages,'  *  The  Ages  of  Faith,'  sometimes  of  an  *  Age 
of  Reason.'  The  wise  student  verifies  the  contents  of  his 
parcel  of  records  as  well  as  the  label.  It  has  been,  and  in 
some  quarters  it  still  is,  as  common  as  it  is  false  to  represent 
the  life  of  the  Christian  society  as  that  of  an  ideal  family 
within,  though  sorely  tried  from  without,  down  to  the 
time  of  the  Edict  of  Milan,  and  to  attribute  to  the  fourth 
century  with  the  beginnings  of  secular  associations  and 
patronage  the  cause  of  all  later  troubles.  But  the  conflict 
or  reconciliation  of  what  may  be  called  the  two  Loyalties 
begins  in  Galilee  and  Judaea,  not  in  Greece  or  Italy;  in  the 
first  century,  not  in  any  later  age.  "  The  separation  "  of 
the  Church  "from  the  world,"  says  Archbishop  Trench, 
"  exists  as  much  for  the  world's  sake  as  for  the  Church's 
own,  that  so  there  may  be  for  the  world  a  City  of  Refuge, 
an  abiding  witness  in  the  midst  of  it  for  a  higher  life  than 
its  own;  which  life,  higher  though  it  be,  may  yet  be  the 
portion,  and  on  the  simplest  terms,  of  every  one  who  will 
claim  his  share  in  it."  ^  In  one  sense  the  observation  is  a 
platitude  somewhat  unhistorically  expressed;  in  another, 
and  that  in  which  it  is  most  likely  to  be  interpreted,  it  is 
profoundly  misleading,  a  relic  of  the  Old  Testament  rather 

'  Lectures  on  Medieval  Church  History,  p.  9  (Macmillan,  1879). 

45 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

than  of  the  New.  The  prayer  of  the  Master  for  His  dis- 
ciples is  not  that  they  should  be  taken  out  of  the  world, 
but  that  they  should  be  kept  from  the  evil  one.  They 
are  to  be  sheep,  it  may  be,  in  the  midst  of  wolves,  but  also, 
in  a  changed  figure,  to  be  the  salt  of  the  earth,  the  leaven 
working  secretly  in  the  lump;  they  are  to  render  to  Caesar 
the  things  that  are  Caesar's  and  to  God  the  things  that 
are  God's;  to  fulfil  all  righteousness;  to  emulate  the  humility 
of  the  publican,  the  charity  of  the  Good  Samaritans  of  the 
world,  not  to  imitate  the  self-satisfied  Pharisees  or  even  the 
priests  and  Levites  of  the  Temple  of  the  Most  High.  And 
if  the  student  be  tempted,  as  he  will  be,  to  attribute  the  decay 
of  Christian  ideals  to  association  with  *  the  State,'  he  will  do 
well  to  reflect  that  there  are  warnings  against  the  corruptions 
of  the  world  in  the  pages  of  New  Testament  writers  at  a 
time  when  certainly  the  infant  Church  cannot  be  accused 
either  of  assimilation  to  the  State  or  of  association  with  it. 

You  may  see  the  same  false  antithesis  when  you 
are  told  that  the  sieges  and  battles  and  sufferings  of  the 
Crusades  do  not  properly  find  a  place  in  a  Church 
history  at  all,^  as  though  the  Church  were  concerned  only 
with  men's  ends  while  the  means  to  attain  them  and  the 
secular  activities  amid  which  they  are  pursued  remained 
outside  its  purview.  No  doubt  a  series  of  dark  pictures 
can  be  drawn  in  relation  to  manners  and  morals  from 
Jerome's  description  ^  of  the  scented,  bejewelled  exquisites 
among  the  younger  Roman  ecclesiastics  of  the  fourth 
century,  to  the  priests  of  Strassburg  carousing  in  taverns 
c.  1 299-1 306,  with  their  long  hair  and  gold-laced  coats,  their 
swords  and  their  boots  of  red,  yellow,  and  green  ^;   from 

'  Lectures  on  Medieval  Church  History,  p,  139  (Macmillan,  1879). 

="  Ep.  ixii,  "Ad  Eustochium  "  ;  cf.  the  famous  Ep.\\\,  "  Ad  Nepotianum." 

2  Martenc  et  Durand,  Thesaurus  Novus,  iv,  529-556  (Paris,  1717). 
46 


I 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

the  rhetorical  invectives  of  Salvian  of  Marseilles  ^  against 
social  standards  in  the  fifth  century  to  the  record  of  visi- 
tations like  that  of  Cardinal  Morton  of  the  Abbey  of  St 
Albans  ^  in  the  fifteenth.  We  can  paint  if  we  wish  in  darker 
colours  still  scenes  from  the  history  of  the  Crusades,  of 
persecutions  like  that  of  the  Albigenses,  or  the  like.  We 
may  summarise  them  as  Ranke  does  in  the  first  chapter 
of  his  History  of  the  Popes^  finding  the  strange  combinations 
of  piety  and  cruelty  "  eloquently  illustrative  of  those  times 
and  of  that  politico-religious  government."^  For  those 
to  whom  religion  is  an  intractable  element,  a  surd  in  the 
calculation  by  which  they  seek  to  resolve  human  history 
into  its  component  parts,  the  "  Tantum  religio  potuit 
suadere  malorum  "  of  Lucretius  may  seem  to  find  at  length 
an  appropriate  conclusion  in  "  Ecrasez  I'infame." 

It  is  of  course  no  answer  to  inquire  whether  the  crimes 
committed  in  the  name  of  Liberty  be  not  greater  than  those 
perpetrated  under  the  sanctions  of  Religion,  since  unless  we 
adopt  a  purely  naturalistic  standpoint  the  latter  would  in 
any  case  be  more  heinous.  A  writer  who  will  not  be  sus- 
pected of  clericalism  observes  in  regard  to  a  later  period 
that  "  it  became  painfully  clear  how  great  a  mistake  it  was 
to  suppose  the  clergy  tainted  with  some  special  curse  of 
cruelty.  Then,  as  usually,  for  good  or  for  evil,  they  were  on 
about  the  same  moral  level  with  an  immense  number  of 
laymen,  and  were  not  much  more  than  the  incarnation  of  the 
average  darkness  of  the  hour."^  The  historian's  function 
is  not  to  extenuate  facts  but  to  endeavour  to  state  them 
truly,  and  few  it  is  to  be  hoped  will  derive  much  comfort 

1  Salvian,  De  Gubernatione  Dei,  iii,  9,  and  Lib.  vii,  passim. 

*  Cf.  Reg.  Morton,  i,  fF.  22b-23b. 
»  (Bell,  191 3.)     Vol.  i,  pp.  25-6. 

*  Voltaire,  p.  229  (Macmillan,  1897). 

47 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

from  Lord  Morley's  apologia  for  the  clergy  of  eighteenth- 
century  France.  But  truthfulness  of  statement  depends  on 
an  effort  to  include  all  relevant  factors  and  to  display  them 
in  a  just  proportion.  There  is  an  element  of  truth  in  all 
these  transcripts  from  life,  but  they  are  not  the  whole  story 
nor  from  every  part  of  the  field.  The  treasure  is  in  earthen 
vessels;  but  there  is  a  treasure  to  be  found  none  the  less  by 
those  who  neither  choose  by  the  view  nor  turn  aside  after 
husks  and  garbage. 

It  is  a  commonplace  of  political  philosophers  that  the 
root-conception  of  mediaeval  theory  is  the  organic  unity 
of  all  mankind  ^  ;  but  further  this  organic  unity  has  a 
spiritual  basis,  since  all  mankind  derives  its  origin  from 
a  single  Creator,  owes  obedience  to  a  single  Ruler — God 
Himself.  As  the  course  of  the  Middle  Ages  proceeds  you 
may  see  the  working  of  other  conceptions,  as  for  example 
when  the  formula  for  the  manumission  of  a  bondman  by 
Robert  Mascall,  the  Carmelite  Bishop  of  Hereford  (1404- 
16),  opens  with  the  words  '*  Whereas  from  the  beginning 
nature  created  all  men  freely  or  free,  and  afterward  the  law 
of  nations  (ius  genciuni)  subjected  some  of  them  to  the  yoke  of 
servitude,  we  therefore  judge  that  it  would  be  a  pious  act 
and  one  deservedly  to  be  rewarded  by  God  to  restore  some 
of  those,  whose  deserts  require  it,  to  their  pristine  liberty  "  ^; 
but  the  fundamental  idea  is  unchanged.  And  in  conse- 
quence, as  it  has  been  said,  "  Christendom,  which  in  destiny 
is  identical  with  Mankind,  is  set  before  us  as  a  single, 
universal  Community,  founded  and  governed  by  God 
Himself."  ^     But  in  the  realm  of  human  affairs  God  governs 

1  See  Gierke,  Political  Theories  of  the  Middle  Age,  edited  by  F.  W. 
Maitland,  pp.  9  fF.  (Cambridge  University  Press,  1900). 

*  Contained  in  Edmund  de  Lacy's  Register,  f.  ib  (Canterbury  and  York 
Society,  191 8). 

3  Gierke,  op.  cit.,  p.  10,  cf.  p.  18  f. 
48 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

by  human  instruments,  and  the  relation  of  these  instru- 
ments to  God  and  to  one  another  and  to  the  rest  of  mankind 
was  one  of  the  supreme  problems  for  mediaeval  thinkers. 
As  will  be  evident,  it  was  a  religious  problem  as  well  as 
a  political  one  :  its  solution  was  of  almost  immeasurable 
practical  importance  ;  and  if  we  approach  it  with  some 
greater  measure  of  hopefulness,  for  we  have  not  as  yet  fully 
solved  it,  that  is  because  we  have  the  experience  of  the 
Middle  Ages  behind  us.  Is  the  relation  of  the  spiritual 
and  the  temporal,  the  ecclesiastical  and  the  secular  powers, 
to  be  one  of  co-ordination  or  is  the  one  to  be  subordinate 
to  the  other,  and,  if  so,  which  is  higher,  which  lower,  and 
upon  what  grounds  is  the  solution  adopted  to  be  defended  .'' 
Let  us  look  at  the  situation  in  the  East  as  well  as  in  the 
West. 

It  is  from  many  points  of  view  unfortunate,  though  it 
has  been  perhaps  inevitable,  that  to  us  the  story  of  the 
Middle  Ages  presents  itself  as  that  of  Western  civilisation, 
or,  as  Dr  Poole  has  preferred  to  put  it,  "  The  history  of 
the  middle  ages  is  the  history  of  the  Latin  church."  ^ 
Yet  the  survival  of  the  Eastern  Empire  from  the  fourth  to 
the  fifteenth  century  is  a  factor  in  European  history  that 
we  do  ill  to  neglect.  Byzantine  Hellenism  has  for  many 
nothing  that  is  attractive,  much  that  is  repellent ;  but 
it  remains  Hellenism  even  if  marred  and  in  a  state  of  sus- 
pended development.  And  the  history  of  non-Western 
Christianity  illustrates  one  solution  of  the  relations  of  Church 
and  State  of  which  we  are  bound  to  take  account,  whether 
or  not  we  approve  it,  for  it  has  been  seen  still  in  use  for 

^  Illustrations  of  the  History  of  Medieval  Thought,  p.  2  (Williams  and 
Norgate,  1 884).  To  this  work  the  present  writer  owes  unmeasured  gratitude 
for  stimulus  many  years  ago  to  read  the  authorities  quoted  and  for  constant 
guidance  in  doing  so. 

D  49 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

good  or  for  evil  down  to  our  own  day,  and  as  an  inheritance 
from  the  Middle  Ages.  We  cannot  stay  to  trace  the 
course  of  its  history  ;  but  look  at  it  at  two  moments  in  its 
development.  For  twenty  years  of  unceasing  conflict  at 
the  opening  of  the  ninth  century  Theodore  of  Studium, 
following  in  the  steps  of  John  Damascene,  claims  for  the 
Church  in  face  of  the  Iconoclastic  emperors  the  right  of 
complete  independence  of  decision  in  matters  of  faith. 
In  the  secular  sphere  princes  have  complete  authority  ; 
but  it  belongs  not  to  them  to  decide  upon  celestial  and 
divine  dogmas  confided  to  the  Apostles  and  their  successors. 
No  Presbyterian  ever  upheld  the  '  Crown  Rights  *  of  the 
Redeemer  more  strenuously  than  this  militant  abbot 
against  time-serving  usurpers  of  the  Patriarchal  throne 
and  the  secular  arm  of  Leo  the  Armenian,  which  broke 
his  body  but  not  his  spirit.  Yet  it  has  its  limitations  of 
charity,  then  as  now,  this  spiritual  intransigeance.  The 
Emperor  Michael  II,  having  liberated  the  prisoners,  pro- 
poses a  conference  between  the  Iconoclasts  and  the  Orthodox. 
But  Theodore,  while  expressing  his  wish  that  the  Emperor 
would  deem  him  worthy  to  see  his  sacred  person,  to  listen 
to  the  entrancing  utterance  of  his  august  mouth  learned  in 
divine  things,  replies  that  any  conference  with  heretics  is 
forbidden  by  apostolic  precept,^  and  dies  in  exile  a  martyr 
to  conviction,  who  as  so  often  has  failed  to  learn  the  beati- 
tude which  belongs  to  the  makers  of  peace.  After  all, 
even  to  those  of  us  who  are  not  episcopal  chancellors  there 
is  illumination  to  be  gained  from  the  study  of  what  actually 
happened  in  the  long  run  with  regard  to  '  images,'  whether 
in  East  or  West.  But  ten  centuries  later  than  Theodore 
the  essential  characteristic  of  the  Orthodox  Church  as  seen 

^  Ep.  ii,  86  (Mignc,  Patrologia  Grceca,  xcix,  c.  1329).    The  whole  letter 
is  singularly  illuminating. 

50 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

in  Russia  appears  to  De  Maistre  to  be  the  complete 
submission  of  the  clergy  to  the  civil  power,  the  union  in 
the  same  hands  of  spiritual  and  temporal  sovereignty.^  "  I 
am  Pope,"  said  Tsar  Alexander  I  to  Napoleon  ;  "  it  is  very 
much  more  convenient  (bien  plus  commode).'"  We  have 
there  in  its  full  development  one  theory  of  the  relation 
of  the  two  powers  :  it  is  logical,  coherent,  and  it  may 
be  doubted  whether  in  practice  it  has  proved  itself  alto- 
gether Erastian  in  the  sense  in  which  we  abuse  that  term 
of  abuse.  And  at  least  the  societas  perfecta  of  Jesuit  theory 
receives  in  both  its  forms  an  unexpected  simplification 
as  the  ecclesiastical  and  temporal  autocrat  of  all  the 
Russias  exchanges  confidences  with  the  imperial  heir  of 
the  royal  dictum  "  L'Etat,  c'est  Moi."  The  world  had  to 
wait  more  than  half  a  century  longer  before  it  heard  from 
other  lips,  not  less  commanding,  the  utterance  of  even  fuller 
significance  "  La  tradizione  son*  lo."  ^ 

Let  us  turn  then  to  the  West.  We  shall  not,  as  every 
one  knows,  escape  from  the  influence  of  Hellenic  thought, 
though  its  results  in  combination  with  other  strains  may 
be  different.  In  the  agony  of  the  fifth  century — at  the 
opening,  as  some  would  say,  of  the  Middle  Ages — Augus- 
tine of  Hippo  bequeathed  to  later  days  the  great  treatise 
De  Ci-vitate  Dei.,  a  much  celebrated  legacy  whose  magni- 
ficence seems  still  for  many  who  write  about  it  unspoiled 
by  familiarity.  Yet  it  was  the  book  selected  by  preference, 
so  we  are  told,  to  be  read  to  him  at  his  dinner-table  by 
Charlemagne,  in  whose  reign  Dr  R.  L.   Poole   has   seen 

•  Cf.  C.  Latreille,  Joseph  de  Maistre  et  la  P apatite,  p.  19  (Hachette,  1906). 

"^  The  attribution  to  Pius  IX  was  accepted  by  Lord  Acton  in  his  article 
on  "  The  Vatican  Council  "  {North  British  Review,  Oct.  1870),  reprinted  in 
The  History  of  Freedom  and  other  Essays  (Macmillan,  1907).  Whether  it 
would  have  satisfied  the  canons  of  E.  Fournier's  provoking  but  fascinating 
work,  1.^ Esprit  dans  I'Histoire  (Paris,  Dentu,  1883),  is  another  matter. 

51 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

"  the  dividing  line  between  ancient  and  medieval  history  .  .  . 
not  only  by  virtue  of  its  political  facts  but  also  because 
it  begins  the  age  of  the  education  of  the  northern  races, 
fitting  them  in  time  to  rule  the  world  as  the  Romans  had 
done  before  them."  ^  What  that  education  might  mean  the 
non-Christian  races  saw  on  the  one  hand  in  the  Emperor's 
efforts  to  "  compel  them  to  come  in,"  not  by  the  appeal 
of  the  philanthropy  of  Christ,  but  by  the  less  gentle  induce- 
ments of  the  sword  and  the  block,  on  the  other  in  the 
history  of  the  Crusades.  It  would  be  absurd  to  make 
Augustine  responsible  for  the  excesses  of  his  readers,  but 
it  is  almost  impossible  to  overestimate  the  extent  of  his 
influence  :  it  seems  sometimes  so  constant  and  so  uni- 
versal as  to  make  it  legitimate  at  least  to  suspect  its  presence 
even  when  unacknowledged. 

For  Augustine  there  are  two  kinds  of  human  society  or 
association,  and  two  only — two  citizenships  or  modes  of 
living,  a  heavenly  and  an  earthly,  with  different  ends  attain- 
able by  different  means.  But  the  conception  implied  in  the 
first  and  last  chapters  of  the  fourteenth  book  was  almost 
inevitably  replaced  by  the  conception  of  two  States,  and 
therewith  came  difficulties  of  a  very  serious  kind,  since  the 
ordinary  mind  tends  to  think  of  States  in  terms  of  institu- 
tions. The  student  whether  of  Augustine  or  of  the  thinkers 
of  the  Middle  Ages  will  need  again  and  again  to  be  on  his 
guard  against  the  persistent  if  subconscious  tendency  to 
interpret  their  language  in  terms  of  the  modern  antithesis  of 
Church  and  State,  and  the  view  of  each  which  that  antithesis 
implies;  and  he  will  find  this  the  more  diflicult  because  the 
Empire  and  the  Papacy,  the  Emperor  and  the  Pope,  will 
seem  to  him  two  great  factors  in  the  political  and  religious 
situation  in  the  Middle  Ages,  exactly  corresponding  with 

1  Medieval  Thought,  p.  15. 
52 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

that  antithesis.  He  must  ask  himself  not  simply  what  was 
their  history,  what  did  they  do,  but  for  what,  in  the  view 
of  mediseval  thinkers,  did  they  stand  ?  Of  this  he  will 
learn  much  from  Gierke's  Political  Theories  of  the  Middle 
Age,  splendidly  edited  by  F.  W.  Maitland,  Dr  Poole's 
Illustrations  of  the  History  of  Medieval  Thought,  Dr  Figgis' 
From  Gerson  to  Grotius  and  other  works,  and  Bishop 
Robertson's  Regnum  Dei.  But  if  he  would  fully  realise 
how  much  trouble  the  matter  gave  to  medieval  thinkers 
from  many  points  of  view  he  must  study  for  himself 
that  truly  painful  compilation,  the  Monarchia  of  Mel- 
chior  Goldast  ^  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  that,  as  he 
will  ruefully  find,  is  far  more  than  an  Opus  Nonaginta 
Dierum,  if  we  may  misapply  the  title  of  the  treatise  by 
William  of  Ockham  which  one  of  the  volumes  contains. 

"  The  State  is  not  in  the  Church,  the  Church  is  in  the 
State  :  .  .  .  above  the  Emperor  there  is  God  alone,  who 
made  the  Emperor":  so  says  Optatus  of  Milevum  in  the 
fifth  century.^  "  The  spiritual  power,"  answers  Hugh  of  St 
Victor  in  the  twelfth,  "  is  superior  to  the  secular  in  antiquity, 
dignity  and  usefulness."  ^  "  God  ought  to  obey  the  Devil,"  * 
if  Wyclif  be  not  libelled  in  the  fourteenth,  while  Luther, 
like  Gerard  of  York,  puts  the  secular  ruler  in  the  place  of 
the  Ignatian  bishop  and  solemnly  burns  the  Canon  Law. 
But  if  in  the  opening  years  of  the  eleventh  century  there 
had  been  realised  the  dream  of  the  Emperor  Otto  III  and 
Pope  Sylvester  II  of  an  Empire  and  a  Papacy,  such  as  in  a 

^  Monarchia  S.  Romani  Imperii  (Hanovise,  1612— 13). 

2  Optati  Milezitani  Libri  VII,  ed.  Ziwsa  "  Corp.  Script.  Eccl.  Lat.,"  ixvi 
(Vindobonae,  1883),  iii,  3:  "  Non  enim  respublica  est  in  ecclesia,  sed 
ecclesia  in  republica,  id  est  in  imperio  Romano  "  (p.  74)  ;  "  Cum  super 
imperatorem  non  sit  nisi  solus  deus,  qui  fecit  imperatorem  "  {ibid.,  p.  75). 

3  Cf.  De  Sacram.,  .  .  .  ii,  2  throughout  (Migne,  P.  L.,  clxxvi,c.  41  5  fF.). 
'  Cf.  Reg.  Courtcney,  f.  25. 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

modified  form  Nicolas  of  Cusa  yearned  for  centuries  later, 
wherein  the  two  powers  ordained  of  God  should  exercise 
an  universal  rule  in  amity  and  concord  side  by  side,  the 
continent  of  Europe  might  have  witnessed  an  experiment 
which  would  have  made  the  later  ideals  of  Gregory  VII, 
Innocent  III,  and  Boniface  VIII  on  the  one  hand  or  those 
of  Dante  in  the  Be  Monarchia  or  Marsiglio  of  Padua  in  the 
Defensor  Pads  on  the  other  appear  superfluous,  if  not 
un-Christian.  True,  the  Donation  of  Constantine  and  the 
pseudo-Isidorian  Decretals  were  ready  to  hand  for  anyone 
who  cared  to  use  them,  and  had  been  so  for  more  than 
two  centuries  before  Hildebrand  ;  but  they  would  probably 
have  remained  in  decent  obscurity,  or  been  summarily 
ejected  from  the  Concordance  of  Discordant  Canons^  had  not 
political  circumstances  arisen  in  which  they  could  be 
prayed  in  aid  of  a  theory  of  the  Church's  universal  juris- 
diction which  was  clearly,  as  it  would  seem,  not  based 
upon  them,  but  for  which  they  were  quoted  with  probably 
much  less  of  conscious  dishonesty  than  has  often  been 
assumed  by  controversialists.  Origins  are  a  notoriously 
difficult  subject,  and  assertion  has  been  known  to  take  the 
place  of  evidence  in  the  pedigrees  of  institutions  and 
customs  as  well  as  of  men.  Few  of  us,  perhaps,  would 
accept  without  hesitation  Newman's  statement  in  the 
treatise  on  Development  which  was  his  last  gift  to  the 
Church  of  England  that  "  first  local  disturbances  gave  rise 
to  Bishops,  and  next  ecumenical  disturbances  gave  rise  to 
Popes,"  ^  even  though  supported  in  part  by  the  authority 
of  St  Jerome.  Still  less  readily,  probably,  shall  we  assent 
when  we  hear  :  "  Who  does  not  know  that  [kings]  had  their 

1  (Oxford  :  Parker,  1845),  p.  167,  Cf.  Hier.  in  Ep.  adTitum,  i,  5,  and 
the  use  made  of  it  by  Wyclif,  De  Potestate  Pape,  cap.  iv,  quoting  from 
Decretum,  Pars  P  dist.  95,  c  5. 

54 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

beginning  from  those  who,  being  ignorant  of  God,  by  pride, 
by  acts  of  brigandage,  perfidy,  homicide,  and  finally  by 
almost  every  species  of  crime,  at  the  instigation  of  the  prince 
of  the  world,  that  is  the  Devil,  by  blind  cupidity  and  in- 
tolerable presumption  affected  to  exercise  dominion  over 
their  peers,  namely,  over  men  ?  "  The  introduction  of 
the  reference  to  supernatural  agency,  even  though  it  be 
diabolical,  forbids  us  to  discern  in  this  full-blooded  rhetoric 
an  anticipation  of  Bolshevist  propaganda — it  is  taken  of 
course  from  the  well-known  letter^  of  Gregory  VII;  and 
by  a  polite  fiction  of  considerable  pragmatic  value  the 
balance  can  readily  be  adjusted.  Regard  the  Pope's 
theory  in  the  spirit  once  more  of  De  Maistre,  and  say 
that  "  it  is  from  the  Pope  that  sovereignty  descends  on 
crowned  heads,  and  it  is  he  who  gives  them  that  consecrated 
character  which  commands  respect  and  obedience,"  -  and 
all  is  simple  and  straightforward.  The  organic  unity  is 
preserved  and  the  Spiritual  Power  reigns  supreme.  The 
only  difficulty  is  to  find  a  period  in  which  the  facts  really 
corresponded  with  the  theory.  And  two  observations 
may  be  made.  It  need  not  trouble  us  in  theory  that  for 
some  seven  centuries  at  any  rate  of  the  Middle  Ages  there 
were  two  opposed  Empires  of  East  and  West — a  condition 
of  affairs  very  different  from  the  original  plan  of  Diocletian; 
and  in  this  regard  the  student  may  derive  considerable 
amusement  from  reading  side  by  side  the  Alexiad  of  Anna 
Comnena  and  the  Letters  of  Gregory  VII.  In  theory 
there  was  still  only  one  Empire,  though  in  reference  to 
this  again  modern  interpretation  will  not  easily  square 
with    medieval    theory.     The    Empire    of    Charlemagne 

^  Epp.  viii,  21,  to  Herman  of  Metz  in  1081  (Jaffe,  Mon.  Greg.,  p.  457, 
Berlin,  1865).     Cf.  iv,  2,  in  1076,  to  the  same  {ibid.,  p.  243). 

*  Latreille,  op.  cit.,  p.  ii,  and  the  second  book  of  Du  Pape,  esp,  c.  5. 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

we  are  accustomed  to  hear  was  not  a  new  creation  of  the 
Pope  nor  a  legitimate  succession  to  the  Empire  of  the 
West :  it  was  a  transfer  in  more  or  less  dubious  circum- 
stances, by  a  person  to  whom  it  did  not  belong  to  a  person 
to  whom  it  belonged  still  less,  of  the  Eastern  Empire  seated 
at  Constantinople.  And  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  which 
bulks  so  large  and  for  so  long  in  mediaeval  history  is  a 
succession  to  neither,  but  a  German  invention  of  which 
one  of  the  wittiest  of  Frenchmen  has  written  the  epitaph 
and  one  of  the  most  erudite  of  English  political  thinkers 
has  articulated  the  skeleton.  And  secondly,  it  is  impos- 
sible not  to  be  struck  with  the  continental  character  of  this 
mediaeval  theorising  :  this  is  as  true  in  reading  William 
of  Ockham  as  in  the  case  of  the  other  works  collected 
by  Goldast.  Neither  English  sovereigns  nor  the  Eng- 
lish people  were  wanting  generally  in  deference  to  the 
see  of  Rome  in  the  Middle  Ages ;  but  the  attitude 
of  William  the  Conqueror  to  Gregory  VII's  demand 
for  homage  finds  an  echo  in  the  sense  of  intolerable 
outrage  to  national  feeling  with  which  the  chroniclers 
record  John's  surrender  of  his  crown  to  Innocent  III  ; 
and  therefrom  followed  consequences  of  which  papal 
statesmen  seem  always  to  have  failed  to  appreciate  the 
significance. 

There  are  few  investigations  more  fascinating,  if  more 
elusive,  than  that  of  the  power  of  ideas  to  mould  facts  as 
well  as  to  account  for  them.  From  some  writers  one  would 
judge  that  the  Hildebrandine  idea  of  the  Papacy  presented 
itself  to  the  world  as  a  strange  and  monstrous  portent  in 
the  eleventh  century.  It  would  seem  to  them  not  less 
original  perhaps  in  its  development,  but  at  any  rate  less 
catastrophic,  if  they  would  consider  on  the  one  hand  the 
conception  of  the  Christian  State  which  underlies  the  Code 

5^  * 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

of  Justinian,  a  monarch  for  whom  orthodoxy  was  a  political 
duty/  or  the  fact  that  in  the  Eastern  Empire  at  the 
beginning  of  the  eighth  century  Baptism  was  the  gate  to 
citizenship  for  men  of  every  race  - ;  or  on  the  other  hand 
the  circumstances  of  the  pontificate,  and  some  of  the 
utterances  of  Gregory  the  Great  more  than  two  centuries 
earlier,  and  the  very  curious  little  disquisition  by  Agobard  of 
Lyons  in  the  ninth  century  on  the  two  rules — ecclesias- 
tical and  secular.  We  have  spoken  of  the  influence  of 
Augustine,  but  there  are  others  to  be  taken  into  account. 
If  you  seek  to  build  as  mediaeval  thinkers  did  your  political 
and  religious  theory  upon  bases  so  discordant  as  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  Aristotle,  and  the  Civil  Law,  you  may  expect 
results  as  strange  as  some  seem  desirous  of  achieving  in 
our  own  day  on  the  foundations  of  Rousseau,  Karl  Marx, 
Herbert  Spencer,  and  Count  Tolstoy. 

The  modern  student  who  sets  himself  to  examine  the 
mediaeval  exegesis  of  Scripture  will  at  least  recognise  the 
reason  for  Lord  Acton's  differentiation  of  the  modern  age. 
Columbus,  Machiavelli,  Erasmus,  Luther,  Copernicus  are 
his  examples  of  the  men  who  stand  between  us  and  the 
Middle  Ages.^  In  a  very  well-known  passage  Dr  Figgis 
has  described  the  changed  position.  "  It  would  require," 
he  says,  "  an  intellectual  revolution — quite  inconceivable 
in  magnitude — to  induce  us  to  regard  it  as  an  argument 
for  the  Papal  power,  that  the  sun  is  superior  to  the  moon, 
or  that  S.  Peter  gave  two  swords  to  Christ ;  that  the 
Pope  is  like  Sinai,  the  source  of  the  oracles  of  God,  and  is 

^  A  convenient  summary,  though  only  a  summary,  of  the  efFects  of  this 
view  upon  Justinian's  legislation  will  be  found  in  W.  G.  Holmes,  The  Age 
of  Justinian  and  Theodora,  vol.  ii,  cc.  xiv,  iv  (London  :  G.  Bell  &  Sons, 
2nd  edit.,  191 2). 

*  Cf.  Lavisse  et  Rambaud,  Hist.  Gen.,  i,  201. 

3  Stud^  of  History,  p.  8. 

57 


MEDIi^VAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

superior  to  all  kings  and  princes,  because  Mount  Sinai  is 
higher  than  all  other  hills  (which  it  is  not)  ;  that  when 
Daniel  speaks  of  beasts,  the  writer  means  that  tyranny  is 
the  origin  of  earthly  power  ;  that  the  command  to  feed  my 
sheep,  and  the  committal  of  the  keys  to  S.  Peter  gave  to 
the  Papacy  the  absolute  political  sovereignty  of  the  world  ; 
or  on  the  other  side  that  Adam  was  the  first  king,  and  Cain 
the  first  priest,  that  the  text  forbidding  murder  proves 
immediately  the  Divine  origin  of  secular  lordship,  that 
unction  is  not  indelible  save  in  France,  but  there  it  is  so 
because  the  oil  is  provided  by  an  angel."  ^  These  things 
have  served  at  least  to  enliven  the  dreariness  for  the  modern 
reader  of  many  a  mediaeval  disquisition  sometimes  of  great 
value,  usually  of  great  length  ;  and  one  may  be  allowed 
to  add  to  the  list  for  the  delight  which  it  caused  when  first 
read  to  one  who  has  lived  under  the  prosaic  regime  of  the 
Third  Republic  the  reason  why  the  crown  of  France  may 
be  worn  neither  by  a  workman  nor  a  woman  :  viz.,  that 
the  lilies  "  toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin."  It  is  easy  to 
be  contemptuous,  but  it  is  a  sure  bar  to  understanding  ; 
and  in  appropriateness  of  exegesis  the  modern  observer 
may  possibly  think  that  there  is  little  to  choose  on  either 
side  for  some  centuries  before  and  after  the  Reforma- 
tion. However  this  may  be,  it  is  at  least  significant  that 
the  attempt  to  interpret  and  to  apply  the  Scriptures  with 
due  regard  to  their  proper  setting  should  have  been 
deferred,  though  with  some  exceptions,  until  to  our 
lasting  impoverishment  they  are,  apart  from  public  ser- 
vices and  professional  studies,  rapidly  ceasing  to  be  read 
at  all. 

No  one  now  reads  Boethius,  though  there  are  still  a  few 

1  From  Gerson  to  Grotius,  pp.  23-4  (Cambridge  University  Press,  2nd 
edit.,  1916). 

58 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

who  are  believed  to  find  consolation  in  philosophy.      He 
announced,  we  remember,  his  intention  of  translating  into 
Latin  every  work  of  Aristotle  within  his  reach.      Of  the 
influence    of  Aristotle's    Politics   upon    Thomas    Aquinas 
in    the   thirteenth   century   all   students   have    heard;    but 
have  you  ever  examined  a  succession  of  great  political  and 
theological  treatises  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  the  West  to  see 
what  would  be  left  of  them  if  you  excised  all  traces  of  Aris- 
totle ?  The  result  is  so  startling  as  to  suggest  that  the  whole 
course  of  Western  history,   civil,   philosophical,   scientific, 
religious,  might  have  been  changed  had  his  works  as  we  now 
possess  them  been  known  in  Latin  from  say  four  hundred 
years  after  the  death  of  Boethius  in  52  5.    It  is  no  mere  affecta- 
tion of  the  pedant  which  makes  Wyclif  begin  his  treatise 
on  the  power  of  the  Pope  with  Aristotle's  fourfold  distinc- 
tion of  power  as  active,  passive,  purposively  controlled  or 
accidentally  acquired  (the  illustration  of  the  last  is  medical 
skill). ^     He  adopts  the  method  because  it  was  natural  to 
his  age.     Holy  Scripture  for  him  includes  all  truth  but  it 
does  not  provide  a  dialectic,  and  though  it  may  be  true 
that  he  is  Platonist  rather  than  Aristotelian  and  that  his 
conclusions  owe  more  to  reflection  on  the  Scriptures  and  on 
Augustine  than   to  any  other  influences,   such  Platonism 
as  he  may  have  learnt  from  Augustine  would  not  have 
given  either  to  him  or  to  his  age  what  was  wanted  for  their 
expression.    To  Dr  Poole  "the  fundamental  principle  of" 
Wyclif's  "Doctrine  of  Lordship  justifies  its  author's  title 
to  be  considered  in  no  partial  sense  the  father  of  modern 
Christianity  "  - — a  judgment  with  which  some  of  us  would 
venture  strongly  to  disagree  ;   but  just  as  you  can   most 
easily  read  the  handwriting  of  some  people  by  determinino- 

1  De  Potestate  Pape,  cap.  i,  "  Wyclif  Society,"  pp.  2-4  (Triibner,  1907), 
*  Op.  cit.,  p.  306. 

59 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

the  angle  from  which  they  wrote,  so  you  can  more  readily 
understand  the  thought  of  a  systematic  writer  of  the 
Middle  Ages  if  you  can  imagine  anew  the  framework  in 
which  in  the  process  of  thinking  new  ideas  struggled  for 
expression.  And  the  inquiry  as  to  the  latest  writer  for 
whom  a  text  from  Scripture  and  a  text  from  Aristotle, 
when  not  discordant,  had  equal  validity  as  an  argument 
in  pari  materia  would  yield  more  useful  results  than  the 
quest  for  the  latest  ecclesiastic  who  wore  a  wig. 

A  lecturer  who  enters  upon  the  subject  of  the   Civil 
Law,  especially  if  he  live  in  the  parts  of  Britain  south  of 
the  Tweed  and  be  a  clerk  in  orders,  will  nowadays  order 
himself  more  lowly  and  reverently  than  has  always  been 
the  fashion.     One  is  sorely  tempted  in  the  terms  of  the 
stately  preface  to   Bacon's  Maxims  of  the   Law  to  try  to 
estimate  the  political  bearings  of  the  differences  between 
the  Roman  civil  law  and  the  laws  of  England,  but  one 
observation  cannot  be  omitted,  at  any  rate,  because  of  its 
direct    bearing   upon    the    present    subject.     The    maxim 
that  the  pleasure  of  the  ruler  has  the  force  of  law  is  re- 
garded  with  just   disapprobation   by   many  who   do   not 
know  that  it  comes  from  the  Digest^ \  for  that  reason  the 
fact  is  often  overlooked  that  it  is  based  on  a  theory  that  the 
source  of  rule  is  to  be  found  in  the  will  of  the  people. 
And  however  strange  the  transformations  which  it  sus- 
tained in  the  hands  of  mediaeval  writers  and  those  of  the 
modern   age   the   idea   of  popular   sovereignty   which    is 
therein  contained  is  one  of  the  many  for  which  we  owe  a 
debt  to  the  Middle  Ages  which  preserved  though  they  did 
not  create  it. 
What  is  the  real  legacy  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  Western  | 

1  "  Quod  principi  placuit  legis  habet  vigorem,"  1.  i,  Dig.,  i,  4.     See  the 
interesting  discussion  in  Gierke,  op.  cit.,  pp.  37  ff,  147. 

60 


I 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

Europe  to  our  modern  day  on  the  political  side  so 
far  as  it  affects  or  is  affected  by  religious  conceptions  ? 
Professor  Tout,  in  a  notable  and  striking  passage,  has 
illustrated  the  efforts  both  of  Pope  and  Emperor  each  in  his 
own  way  to  establish  God's  Kingdom  upon  earth.  Beside 
Hildebrand  he  sets  the  noblest  of  the  House  of  Hohen- 
staufen,  Frederick  Barbarossa,  "  the  most  imposing,  the 
most  heroic,  and  the  most  brilliant  of  the  long  line  of 
German  princes,  who  strove  to  realise  the  impracticable 
but  glorious  political  ideal  of  the  Middle  Ages."  ^  And 
yet,  one  may  venture  to  think,  if  our  inheritance  is  still 
the  vision  of  a  Civitas  Dei  which  those  ages  learnt  from 
Augustine  and  Augustine  from  the  New  Testament,  we 
shall  not  take  from  them  the  conception  of  its  possible 
realisation  either  through  an  universal  Empire — a  world- 
domination  German,  French,  Latin,  British,  Mongolian, 
or  Slav,  wherein  religious  activities  might  probably  be  cither 
ordered  by  a  Minister  of  Public  Worship  or  peremptorily 
excluded,  nor  through  an  universal  Papacy,  the  earthly 
embodiment  of  that  Divine  Wisdom  by  whom  kings 
reign  and  princes  decree  justice.  We  shall  seek  it  rather 
through  the  development  of  that  national  consciousness 
among  the  several  races  of  the  civilised  world  which  then 
rendered  impossible  the  achievement  of  the  ideal  of  the 
mediaeval  Popes  and  on  the  other  hand  fostered  a  national 
expression  of  religion  which  we  are  gradually  learning  to 
regard  as  involving,  not  the  negation  of  that  unity  among 
Christians  for  which  their  Master  prayed,  but  an  enrich- 
ment of  the  life  of  the  One  Body  "  fitly  framed  and  knit 
together  through  that  which  every  joint  supplieth." 

Clearly   this   view   will    not    pass    unchallenged.      Lord 
Acton,  for  example,  would  have  rejected  such  a  conclusion ; 

^  The  Empire  and  the  Papacy,  p,  247  (Rivingtons,  1909). 

61 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

and  there  are  many  indeed  to  whom  such  a  statement  will 
seem  a  bewildering  confusion  of  the  issues  raised  by  the 
facts  of  what  is  called  the  *  religious  situation  *  in  the 
several  nations  of  Western  Europe,  even  if  we  take  no 
wider  outlook.  As  so  often,  the  mental  constructions  of 
one  epoch  are  the  prisons  of  the  next  until  the  power  of 
some  new  idea  avails  to  burst  the  bonds  which  men  forge 
for  themselves  from  age  to  age.  The  formation  of  great 
states  rendered  improbable  the  continued  recognition  any- 
where of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  as  being  still  in  theory 
what  it  had  never  been  in  fact,  the  Civitas  Dei.  The 
forces  political,  intellectual,  religious,  which  made  them- 
selves felt  in  the  century  from  1450  to  1550,  but  of  whose 
presence  we  may  find  indications  a  century  earlier,  served 
to  disintegrate  the  mediaeval  conception  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  An  attempt  was  made,  is  still  made,  to  sub- 
stitute for  it  one  less  vulnerable  if  more  elusive,  because 
ex  hypothesi  invisible,  though  neither  was  that  idea  again 
wholly  new.  But  its  unity  was  marred  from  the  outset  by 
the  fierce  claim  of  the  several  Churches  to  exclude  from  it 
all  others  of  whose  principles  and  practice  they  disapproved, 
and  those  who  were  themselves,  like  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  the 
victims  of  intolerance  could  not  always  show  a  subsequent 
record  free  from  the  stain  of  persecution;  while  in  theology 
the  new  scholasticism  proved  for  many  generations  even 
more  burdensome  than  the  old. 

Let  us  look  a  little  closer.  On  the  political  side  we  should 
all  reject  the  abominable  doctrine  expressed  in  the  words 
Cuius  regio  eius  religio — the  theory  that  the  ruler  has  the  right 
to  determine  the  religion  of  his  subjects,  an  inheritance  not 
from  the  Middle  Ages  but  from  the  Reformation  period 
of  which  you  may  find  an  exemplification  in  the  Peace  of 
Augsburg  in  the  sixteenth  century  or  in  some  of  the  con- 
62 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

sequences  of  the  Peace  of  Westphalia  in  the  seventeenth. 
On  the  other  hand,  whether  we  agree  or  disagree  with  Lord 
Acton's  famous  essay  on  "  The  Protestant  Theory  of  Perse- 
cution," ^  the  student  will  find  himself  obliged  to  conclude 
that  in  the  history  of  the  struggle  for  religious  toleration 
the  prime  movers  have  seldom  been  found  among  the 
official  representatives  of  organised  Christianity,  Catholic 
or  Protestant.  He  may  also  infer  without  sacrifice  of  his- 
torical truth  that  that  toleration  which  is  actually  guaranteed 
by  every  enlightened  state  is  the  product  not  of  indifference 
but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  of  the  Christian  conscience  of  the 
majority  of  its  citizens.  And  within  the  expansive  limits 
of  that  toleration  so  painfully  won  our  later  age  has  seen 
the  signs  of  a  new  ra-pprochement^  a  consciousness  of  shame 
at  our  unhappy  divisions,  a  recognition  of  a  unity  in 
diversity  which  at  one  time  seemed  impossible,  and  still 
to  some  is  an  idle  dream.  From  the  sense  of  an  underlying 
unity  has  come  a  new  conception  of  a  visible  Church, 
the  realisation  of  which  may  indeed  be  far  distant  but 
which  has  possibilities  that  men  are  at  least  ready  to 
explore.  The  Reformation  is  seen  as  a  stage  in  the  drama 
of  Western  Christendom,  an  episode  of  enormous  import- 
ance necessary  to  the  development  of  the  action,  but  not 
the  whole,  one  which  indeed  cannot  be  understood  by 
blotting  out  twelve  centuries  of  Christian  history.  And 
those  who  turn  with  reawakened  curiosity  to  the  Middle 
Ages  will  assuredly  not  return  unrewarded.  Where  will 
you  find  a  nobler  expression  of  the  true  ideal  of  the  new 
commonwealth  which  we  are  seeking  to  build  than  in 
Marsiglio's    adoption    of    Aristotle's    definition  -  of    the 

*  The   Rambler,  March    1862,   reprinted    in    The    History  of  Freedom 
(Macmillan,   1907), 

*  Politics,  \,  I  ;   Mars.,  Def.  Pads,  \,  4  (Goldast,  Monarch.,  \\,  157). 

63 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

rationale  of  the  State  "in  order  that  men  may  Hve  well  " 
and  his  explication  of  "living  well"  as  "having  leisure 
for  liberal  tasks,  such  as  are  those  of  the  virtues  of  the 
soul  as  well  of  thought  as  of  action  "  ? 

If  it  be  suggested  that  we  have  been  dwelling  too  much 
upon  the  political  side  of  mediaeval  thought  in  our  search 
for  religious  contributions  to  our  modern  civilisation,  it  must 
be  remembered  that,  humanly  speaking,  if  ever  the  kingdom 
of  the  world  is  to  become  the  Kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  of 
His  Christ  it  will  be  because  the  visible  Church  of  which 
we  dream  is  not  a  City  of  Refuge  but  the  embodiment  of 
Christian  citizenship  because  of  Christian  discipleship.  You 
cannot  divorce  the  politics  and  the  religion  of  the  true 
citizen  without  detriment  to  the  State,  any  more  than  you 
can  build  a  common  life  on  a  basis  of  self-interest,  however 
much  enlightened.  It  is  often  argued  that  religious  men 
are  unpractical,  but  it  may  be  questioned  whether  the 
stricture  sounds  well  in  the  mouth  of  people  who  are 
endeavouring  to  teach  what  by  a  new  barbarism  is  called 
Civics,  in  which  we  may  recognise  some  of  the  maxims 
of  Christian  conduct  divorced  from  the  Christian  motive. 
Again,  the  mediaeval  aspirations  after  a  life  of  evangelical 
poverty,  which  are  found  so  beautiful  to  read  even  by  many 
who  frankly  admit  that  they  could  never  themselves 
attempt  to  rise  to  their  level,  represent  a  reaction  against 
the  impoverishment  of  Christian  ideals,  the  degradation 
of  Christian  practice  observable  in  the  life  of  the  mediaeval 
Church.  But  those  aspirations  are  themselves  part  of  that 
life.  As  we  study  them  in  Arnold  of  Brescia,  in  the  Rule 
of  St  Francis  of  Assisi  or  the  works  of  Franciscans  like 
Archbishop  Peckham  or  of  Dominicans  like  Tauler,  to 
take  only  a  few  instances,  or  as  we  trace  the  later  history 
of  the  Spiritual  Franciscans,  we  may  possibly  feel  the  same 
64 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

superiority  or  the  same  sadness  in  noting  where  on  the 
practical  side  their  doctrine  fails,  and  why,  as  we  might 
in  reading  Mr  George  Jacob  Holyoake's  history  of  the 
early  stages  of  the  Co-operative  Movement.^  But  study 
their  implications  and  see  whether  you  may  not  find  in 
them  some  of  the  principles  for  which  our  modern  age  is 
still  seeking.  "  The  whole  social  economy  of  the  Fran- 
ciscans," says  a  modern  exponent  of  it,  "  proceeded  from 
the  ideal  of  service  having  for  its  motive  the  evangelical 
law  of  love.  ...  So  far  the  Franciscan  social  ideal  is  that 
of  a  perfect  democracy  ;  of  a  society  in  which  all  the  mem- 
bers are  on  an  equality  of  comradeship,  whatever  be  the 
accident  of  their  place  or  position,  and  in  which  all,  whether 
rulers  or  governed,  are  subject  to  the  same  law  of  personal 
service.  But  where  the  Franciscan  democracy  differs 
from  the  ordinary  political  democracy  is,  in  the  first  place, 
that  with  the  Franciscan  equality  is  generated  in  voluntary 
assumption  of  common  duties  and  responsibilities  and  not 
in  the  assertion  of  individual  rights.  The  Franciscan 
begins  at  the  other  end  from  that  generally  taken  by  the 
political  democrat.  He  starts  practically  from  the  idea 
that  he  himself  owes  a  duty  to  his  neighbour  rather  than 
that  his  neighbour  owes  a  duty  to  him  ;  he  is  more  con- 
cerned to  curb  his  own  arrogance  and  selfishness  than  to 
curb  that  of  others  ;  he  is  more  willing  to  submit  to  the 
will  of  another  than  to  claim  another's  submission  to  his 
will.  In  short,  the  ideal  Franciscan  society  is  akin  to  that 
democracy  of  spirit  which  exists  in  the  personal  relations 
of  all  true  men."  ^  It  is  strange  to  contrast  such  an  ideal, 
which  to  many  will  seem  no  unfair  representation  of  that 

1   The  History  of  Co-operation  (Trubncr,  1875,  1879),  revised  and  com- 
pleted (T.  Fisher  Unvvin,  1906). 

*  Fr  Cuthbcrt,  O.S.F.C.,   The   Romanticism  of  St  Francis,  pp.  64-5 
(Longmans,  191 5). 

E  65 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

spirit  of  St  Francis  himself  which  lives  on  from  the  Middle 
Ages  in  the  freshness  of  an  eternal  spring,  with  the  language 
of  Gregory  VII  as  to  the  origin  of  secular  governments  or 
with  a  definition  of  the  purpose  of  the  laws  that  was  still 
being  taught  in  England  within  living  memory — that  they 
were  intended  "  to  preserve  the  rich  in  their  possessions 
and  to  restrain  the  vicious  poor." 

Once  more,  of  course,  a  caution  is  necessary.  The 
casual  student  will  learn,  shall  we  say,  from  Lord  Acton's 
works  that  the  Whig  theory  of  the  Revolution  may  be 
found  in  the  works  of  St  Thomas  Aquinas,  written  at  the 
time  when  Simon  de  Montfort  summoned  the  Commons,^ 
or  that  the  doctrines  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  nation, 
representative  government,  the  superiority  of  the  legis- 
lature over  the  executive,  and  the  liberty  of  conscience 
were  worked  out  by  Marsiglio  of  Padua,  who  lived  at  the 
same  time  as  Edward  11.^  These  facts  are  dear  to  students 
of  politics,  if  unknown  to  politicians  who  do  not  study. 
But  it  would  be  the  wildest  absurdity  to  suppose  that  the 
theologians  and  jurists  of  the  Middle  Ages  were  generally 
in  favour  of  liberty  of  conscience  any  more  than  of  repre- 
sentative government  ;  or  that  such  an  injunction  met 
with  universal  approval  as  is  found  in  the  Decretals  that 
"  secular  judges  who  with  damnable  presumption  compel 
ecclesiastical  persons  to  pay  debts  are  to  be  restrained 
from  such  temerity  by  ecclesiastical  censure  through  the 
ordinaries  of  the  places."  ^  And  the  fact  that  in  a  bygone 
age  an  idea  is  tentatively  sketched  out,  or  even  seriously 

1  This  much  misquoted  statement  occurs  in  the  remarkable  address  to 
the  members  of  the  Bridgnorth  Institution  in  1877  on  "The  History  of 
Freedom  in  Christianity,"  printed  in  The  History  of  Freedom  (see  pp.  36-7). 

2  Ibid.,  p.  37. 

^  Quoted  by  Figgis,  From  Gerson  to  Grotius,  p.  260,  from  the  Sext.,  ii,  2,  2, 

66 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

put  forward,  which  seems  to  some  the  acme  of '  modernity,*    [ 
is  no  ground  in  itself  for  claiming  that  we  receive  it  by 
legitimate   succession  or  for  denying  the  originality  of  its 
presentation  in  our  own  day.      Dr  Poole  with  justice   has 
claimed  Marsiglio  as  one  of  "  that  rarest  class  of  doctrinaires 
whom  future  ages  may  rightly  look  back  upon  as  prophets,"  ^ 
but  in  their  own  day  they  were  as  a  rule  rather  solitary 
figures,    and    even    where   they   attracted    followers    they 
had  usually  few  successors.      It  is  a  striking  and  curious 
fact,  but  it  is  no  more,  that  William  of  Ockham  should  have 
argued   in   the   fourteenth   century   for   the   inclusion   not 
merely  of  laymen  but  of  women  in  the   general    councils 
of  the  Church,  where  the  wisdom,  goodness,  or  power  of 
women  should  be  necessary  for  the  treatment  of  the  Faith.^ 
And  even  the  suggestion  of  the  Invincible  Doctor,  perhaps 
not  intended  to  be  taken  very  seriously,  though  he  puts  it 
forward  with  gravity,  must  yield  place  to  the  rich  variety 
of  novelties  in  the  tractate  Of  the  Recovery  of  the  Holy  Land  -^ 
by  the  Norman  advocate  Pierre  du  Bois.     Dr  Figgis  calls  ''' 
it  "  a  mine  of  reforming  ideas,"  though  we  may  well  think 
that  some  of  them  would  have  startled  the  Fathers  of  the  , 
Reformation.     "  Disendowment   of  the    Church,    and   ofi 
the  monasteries,  absolute  authority  for  the  secular  State,  ' 
women's    enfranchisement,    mixed   education,    are  all    ad-  j 
vanced  with  the  one  object  of  increasing  the  power  of  the  \ 
French  king,  who  is  to  be  made  Emperor  and  to  rule  at  ; 
Constantinople.     International  Arbitration  was  to  decrease 
the  horrors  of  war,  and  educated  women  were  to  be  sent 
to  the  Holy  Land  in  order  to  marry  and  convert  both  the 
Saracens  and  the  priests  of  the  Orthodox  Church,  and  also 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  275. 

*  "  Propter  unitaiem  fidei  .  .  .  quae  omnest  angit  et  in  qua  non  masculus 
nee  fcmina  "  [Dia/ogus,  c.  85  ad  Jin.    Goldast,  Mori.,  ii,  605). 

67 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

to  become  trained  nurses  and  teachers.  .  .  .  The  whole 
spirit  of  the  book  is  secular  and  modern.  Bishop  Stubbs 
was  wont  to  declare  that  everything  was  in  it,  including 
the  new  woman."  ^ 

It  is  required  of  the  Bishops  of  the  Church  of  England 
by  the  thirty-fourth  and  thirty-fifth  canons  of  1603,  under 
pain  of  two  years'  suspension  from  the  power  of  ordaining, 
that  they  admit  none  to  holy  orders  save  after  examina- 
tion and  being  such  as  are  able  as  a  minimum  qualification 
to  render  an  account  of  their  faith  in  Latin.  The  require- 
ment was  certainly  enforced  as  late  as  the  time  of  Arch- 
bishop Tenison,  and  though  it  may  not  be  a  discipline  of 
which  the  restoration  is  nowadays  much  wished,  at  any 
rate  by  ordination  candidates,  it  is  certain  that  much  loss 
has  come  to  clerks  as  well  as  to  laymen  from  the  fact  that 
they  cannot  as  a  rule  read  with  any  facility  the  ecclesiastical 
Latin  of  the  Middle  Ages.  In  view  of  this  disability,  it 
is  worth  while  to  insist  upon  the  fact  that  any  student  can 
now  read  a  considerable  part  at  least  if  he  will  of  the  Summa 
of  St  Thomas  Aquinas  in  an  admirable  English  translation. 
This  fact  is  the  more  important  because  in  the  minds  of 
many  the  philosophy  of  the  Middle  Ages  means  nothing 
more  than  is  expressed  by  a  vague  reference  to  the  School- 
men regarded  as  protagonists  of  a  series  of  wearisome 
logomachies,  the  inventors  of  antitheses  of  knowledge 
falsely  so  called.  Thus  to  regard  it  is  to  stultify  reason 
and  to  misread  history.  We  may  as  easily  eliminate  from 
the  doctrinal  content  of  the  theology  of  the  undivided 
Church  the  influence  of  ancient  philosophy  on,  let  us  say, 
the  Christian  Gnostics  of  Alexandria.,  as  treat  the  Nomin- 

1  Figgis,  op.  cit.  pp.  31-2.  There  are  few  works  of  equal  compass  from 
which  the  student  may  derive  so  much  amusement  as  Langlois'  edition 
of  the  De  Recuperatione  Terras  Sanct<£  (Paris :  Picard,  1891). 

68 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

alists  and  Realists  of  the  West  with  their  quest  for  truth 
in  forms  borrowed  from  Platonist  and  AristoteHan  sources, 
acutely  studied  if  imperfectly  known,  as  mere  triflers. 
The  sanity  of  the  nobler  minds  of  the  Middle  Ages  is  seen 
in  other  fields  of  religious  interest  besides  politics.  Mr 
Taylor  in  his  useful  if  discursive  work  on  The  Mediaeval 
Mind  has  spoken  of  those  who  in  the  twelfth  century 
cultivated  logic  and  metaphysics  with  the  desire  to  know 
more  active  in  them  than  the  fear  of  hell.^  **  By  doubting," 
says  Abelard  in  his  Sic  et  Non,  "  we  are  led  to  inquire  ; 
by  inquiry  we  perceive  the  truth."  "  After  all,  one  may 
suppose  that  logic  is  not  always  the  enemy  of  truth — was 
it  not  deemed  a  requisite  for  a  degree  in  medicine  at 
Salerno  ? — though  theologians  have  perhaps  been  more 
prone  than  other  men  to  take  refuge  in  language  such  as 
St  Bernard  allowed  himself  with  regard  to  Abelard :  "  Would 
not  a  mouth  which  says  such  things  more  justly  be  beaten 
with  bludgeons  than  refuted  with  reasons?"^ 

One  who  has  spent  more  time  than  he  cares  to  remember 
in  turning  pages  of  manuscripts  of  Rabanus  Maurus  in 
search  for  other  things  may  be  excused  if  in  what  follows 
he  shows  that,  like  Rabanus,  according  to  Mr  Taylor, 
**  the  operations  of  his  mind  "  are  "  predominantly  Caro- 
lingian,  which  is  to  say  that  ninety-nine  per  cent,  of  the 
contents  of"  what  he  has  to  say  "consists  of  material 
extracted  from  prior  writers."  ^  To  Rabanus  "  the  foun- 
dation, the  state,  and  the  perfection  of  wisdom  is  knowledge 
of  the  Holy  Scriptures."''    Philosophy,  in  the  view  of  the 

1  i,  247  (Macmillan,  191 1). 

*  "  Dubitando  ad  inquisitionem  venimus  :   inquirendo  veritatem   percipi- 
mus  "  [P.  L.,  clxxviii,  c.  1349). 

3  Ep.  de  Erroribus  Abdlardi,  v,  §  11.     Cf.  Dr  Rashdall's  comment  in 
his  Idea  of  Atonement,  p.  359,  note  4  (Macmillan,  1919). 

*  Taylor,  op.  cit.,  i,  222.     ^  Rabanus,  C/er.  Inst.,  iii,  2  [P.  L.,  cvii,  c.  379). 

69 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

early  Middle  Ages,  is  a  part  of  secular  riches,  even  if,  as 
Alcuin  taught,  it  be  the  only  part  which  has  never  left 
its  possessor  miserable. ■"•  But  just  as  Alcuin  insists  on  a 
religious  purpose  in  all  education,  Rabanus  holds  that  the 
clergy  ought  to  learn  logic  and  "  have  its  laws  in  constant 
meditation,  so  that  subtly  they  may  discern  the  wiles  of 
heretics  and  confute  their  poisoned  sayings  with  the 
conclusions  of  the  syllogism."  ^  But  if  we  have  papal 
authority  for  the  statement  that  God  is  not  tied  by  the 
rules  of  grammar,  it  was  no  less  certain  that  the  time  would 
arrive  when  the  freedom  of  inquiry  allowed  in  the  philo- 
sophical schools  would  extend  into  the  domain  of  theology. 
For  our  present  purpose  it  is  irrelevant  to  consider  whether 
such  excursions  were  officially  regarded  as  orthodox  or 
the  reverse.  If  it  be  contended  that  the  attitude  of 
ecclesiastical  authority  in  all  ages  has  seldom  been  found 
to  be  a  mean  between  excessive  rigorism  and  a  no  less 
dangerous  credulity,  it  would  not  be  unfair  to  extend  the 
stricture  to  the  official  exponents  of  philosophy  and  of 
natural  science.  What  is  important  for  us  to  remember  is 
that,  with  whatever  necessary  qualifications,  the  demand  for 
a  rational  theology  is  a  legacy  handed  on  from  some  of  the 
greatest  minds  of  the  Middle  Ages  :  true,  it  did  not  originate 
with  them,  but  still  less  is  it  a  new  discovery  of  our  own 
day.  And  the  liberty  of  prophesying  would  always  be 
dearly  bought  at  the  price  of  the  liberty  of  thinking. 

Of  course  the  attempted  solutions  are  conditioned 
in  every  age  by  the  circumstances  of  the  time ;  and 
there  will  inevitably  be  periods  of  reaction.  Those  who 
have  read  Dr  Poole's  delightful  chapter  on  John  of 
Salisbury    will    remember   its    closing    reflections    on    the 

^  Taylor,  op.  cii.,  i,  216. 

2  /^zV.,  i,  222.    Rabanus,  C/er.  Inst.,  iii,  20  {P.  L.,  cvii,  c.  397),  reading 
"  dicta  veneficata." 
70 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

attempt  at  the  opening  of  the  thirteenth  century  to  proscribe 
the  Physics  and  Metaphysics  of  Aristotle ;    and  it  is  very 
easy  for  us  who  live  in  an  age  when  Greek  has  not  as  yet 
been  again  forgotten  to  be  unjust  to  the  Latin  West.     But 
this  in  itself  makes  it  the  more  necessary  that  we  should 
not  treat  the  Eastern  Church  as  though  it  had  no  history 
with   which    we    need    concern    ourselves.      Its    dogmatic 
controversies,  extending  into  the  Middle  Ages,  have  an 
importance  which  the  development  of  modern  philosophical 
theology   may   yet   bring   into   higher   relief.     And   it   is 
surely  not  unworthy  of  remark,  though  it  is  often  forgotten, 
that  the  one  Creed  of  the  universal  Church  is  an  Eastern 
creed.     M.  Lavisse,  in  a  striking  picture  of  the  East  and 
the  West,   recalls  the  contrast  familiar  to  every  student 
between  the  spirit  of  the  philosopher  and  that  of  the  jurist. 
"  The  Pope  is  a  theologian  making  laws,  whilst  a  philo- 
sopher survives  in  every  Eastern  theologian."  -^     "  Haereti- 
corum  patriarchae  philosophi,"  jibes  the  lawyer  Tertullian  ^; 
and  it  is  significant  that  the  one  Western  philosopher  of 
the    early    Middle    Ages    whose    philosophy    of   religion, 
though  evolved  among   Christian  associations,   has  some- 
times been  regarded  as  capable  of  sustaining  without  im- 
poverishment the  removal   of  its   Christian   elements   was 
a  disciple  of  Hellenic  learning.     William  of  Malmesbury  ^ 
tells  us  that  he  was  stabbed  to  death  with  the  points  of 
their  pens  by  his  English  pupils — a  pungent  warning  of 
the   dangers   of  attempting   to   teach   the   unimaginative  ; 
but  whether  this  be  true  or  not  it  is  a  fact  that,  as  Dr  Poole 
says,  "  the  voice  of  orthodoxy  on  all  sides  was  directed  against 
Johannes  Scotus,  the  belated  disciple  of  Plato,  and  the  last 

'  Hist.  Gen.,  i,  172. 

*  Adv.  Hermogenem,  8  ad  Jin.,  a  work  which  it  is  none  the  less  good 
for  philosophers  (and  others)  to  read. 

■"   Gesta  Pontif.,  v,  §240  (Rolls  Series),  "  garfiis  foratus." 

71 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

representative  of  the  Greek  spirit  in  the  west."  ^  Orthodox 
or  not,  he  anticipated  the  fundamental  principle  of  Descartes, 
Cogito^  ergo  sum,  though  that  too,  as  Dr  Poole  has  pointed  out, 
is  to  be  found  like  so  much  else  already  in  St  Augustine.  - 
We  must  leave  it  to  others  to  estimate  the  specific 
debt  of  modern  philosophy,  so  far  as  such  an  expression 
has  a  meaning,  to  those  great  masters  of  the  Middle  Ages 
who  dared  to  think  when  originality  had  a  spice  of  danger 
which  might  prove  a  salutary  tonic  in  our  own  day.  But 
there  is  a  class  of  thinkers — perhaps  we  should  say  one  type 
of  mind — regarded  in  all  ages  with  dislike  by  the  philo- 
sopher and  with  suspicion  by  the  theologian,  though 
having  affinities  with  both.  Few  words  have  been  used 
to  cover  so  great  a  variety  of  disparate  and  even  incoherent 
beliefs  as  Mysticism.  It  is  as  difficult  to  find  a  common 
term  between  different  schools  of  mystics,  Neoplatonist, 
Christian,  Mohammedan,  Persian,  and  others,  with  endless 
combinations  of  one  or  more  strains,  as  it  is  among  the 
early  Gnostics.  In  the  exposition  of  the  Aristotelian 
philosophy  by  successive  Christian  interpreters  such,  for 
example  only,  as  the  Franciscan  Alexander  of  Hales  and 
the  Dominicans  Albertus  Magnus  and  St  Thomas  may  be 
found  a  progressive  attempt  to  express  within  the  four 
corners  of  orthodoxy  ultimate  truths  as  to  the  nature  of 
God,  of  the  world,  of  man  regarded  from  the  standpoint 
of  philosophy  as  well  as  of  Revelation,^  by  a  union  through 
which  each  is  found  to  be  the  proper  complement  and 
interpretation  of  the  other.  In  a  sense  it  would  be  true  to 
say  that  the  type  of  scholasticism  represented  by  Aquinas  is 
the  supreme  triumph  of  human  reason  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
But  there  is  another  way  of  approach  with  which  we  are 

^  Poole,  op.  cit.,  p-  52.  -  Ibid.,  p.  65,  note  18. 

^  Taylor,  op.  cit.,  ii,  393-4. 
72 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

now  concerned.  Look  at  it  in  the  twelfth  century  as  you  see 
it  in  Hugh  of  St  Victor  and  his  followers.  A  Platonist  at 
heart,  even  if  in  some  things  he  follows  Aristotle,  Hugh  found 
his  real  source  of  inspiration  in  the  extraordinary,  and  in  some 
ways  fascinating,  Neoplatonist  work  on  the  Celestial  Hier- 
archy which  was  preserved  among  the  supposed  writings  of 
Dionysius  the  Areopagite,  a  belief  in  the  genuineness  of 
which  was  sufficient  to  work  miracles  in  France  in  the  days 
of  St  Louis.  All  true  mysticism,  so  far  as  one  can  judge, 
is  concerned  with  the  approach  of  the  soul  to  God.  But  in 
Hugh  and  his  followers,  unlike  many  later  schools  to  which 
the  same  title  of  mystics  is  applied,  this  approach  is  the  crown 
of  an  intellectual  process  which  it  transcends  ;  it  is  not  a  sub- 
stitute for  it.  In  all  this  approach  involves  the  surrender 
of  the  will ;  but  seldom  if  ever  in  Hugh,  or  in  any  of  the 
mystics  whose  influence  has  been  lasting,  has  it  involved 
the  negation  of  the  reason.  The  Christian  mysticism  of 
the  Middle  and  later  ages  (which  the  Dean  of  St  Paul's, 
it  may  safely  be  said,  has  induced  hundreds  to  study)  is 
widely  sundered  perhaps  in  many  of  its  forms  from  their 
ordinary  modes  of  thinking  or  apprehension.  Its  attrac- 
tion has  lain  probably  on  its  ethical  side  rather  than  in  its 
philosophical  implications,  often  very  imperfectly  under- 
stood ;  and  the  attraction  of  different  mystics  for  different 
types  of  student  has  certainly  varied  largely  according  to 
their  temperament.  It  has  been  claimed,  justly  or  unjustly, 
for  Tauler  and  his  school  in  the  fourteenth  century  that 
they  gave  to  the  German  nation  a  philosophical  termin- 
ology.i  But  what  is  more  likely  to  interest  most  readers  is 
the  ideal  of  living  set  forth  in  the  Sermons  and  the  criticism 
of  the  ideal  of  poverty  of  the  Spiritual   Franciscans,   his 

1  C.  Schmidt,  Johannes  Tauler  von  Strassburg,  p.  79  (Hamburg,  1841), 
hard  to  procure  and  hard  to  read,  but  worth  the  trouble. 

73 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

substitution  for  the  renunciation  of  all  earthly  wealth  of 
that  poorness  of  spirit  which  appropriates  nothing  but 
holds  all  in  trust.  On  the  other  hand,  the  self-mortification 
by  almost  incredible  bodily  austerities  described  in  the  life 
of  Henry  Suso  belongs  in  the  last  resort  to  the  sphere  of 
morbid  psychology  rather  than  of  religion.  In  its  exag- 
gerated form  there  may  seem  little  to  choose  between  the 
Servitor  as  he  describes  his  way  of  life  and  St  Simeon 
Stylites  as  not  he  himself  but  Tennyson  pictures  him  ; 
but  in  the  underlying  motive  a  real  difference  can  be 
distinguished,  for  the  basis  of  Suso's  actions  is  neither 
the  averting  of  wrath  nor  the  acquirement  of  merit,  but, 
however  pitifully  misinterpreted,  that  which  is  the  basis 
of  all  true  mysticism — the  love  of  God,  shown  in  his  case 
in  the  passionate  yearning  to  share  in  the  sufferings  of  his 
suffering  Lord.  And  those  who  would  see  this  love  for 
God  exhibited  on  its  truer,  fuller  side  should  study  it  in 
Dame  Julian  of  Norwich  or  in  the  joyful  spirit  of  the  works 
of  the  Hermit  of  Hampole,  Richard  Rolle,  though  even 
in  the  latter  may  be  found  that  distrust  of  natural  human 
love  which  is  alien  to  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel  but  quite 
consonant  with  much  of  the  teaching  alike  of  the  Early 
Fathers  of  the  Church  and  of  mediaeval  theology. 

Dr  Inge  says  of  William  Law's  book.  The  Grounds  and 
Reasons  of  Christian  Regeneration,  that  he  knows  "  no  better 
summary  of  the  theology  and  ethics  of  Christian  mysticism,"  -^ 
and  those  who  are  led  by  his  account  of  it  to  study  it  and 
other  works  will  see  that,  while  Law's  theology  is  his  own 
and  in  its  exposition  he  is  profoundly  influenced  by  the 
seventeenth-century  German  mystic  whom  we  call  Jacob 
Behmen,  there  is  not  a  little  in  the  thought  which  is  common 
to  earlier  mystics  in  the  Middle  Ages  ;  and  in  many  of 
*  Studies  of  English  Mystics,  pp.  152-3  (John  Murray,  1906). 

74 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

them,  one  may  venture  to  think,  much  that  breathes  the 
very  spirit  of  the  Johannine  theology.  And  so  again  if 
there  are  parts  of  Meister  Eckhart's  sermons  which  seem 
to  Hnk  him  with  Christian  Gnosticism,  there  are  others 
where  he  is  speaking  of  intelHgence,  will,  and  love  in  a 
way  that  makes  us  wonder  whether  he  would  have  regarded 
Mr  McTaggart  as  a  master  or  a  misguided  disciple. 

It  is  not  a  question  of  establishing  a  legitimate  descent 
in  this  or  like  cases,  any  more  than  between  the  ideals  of 
Tauler's  Friends  of  God  or  the  Brethren  of  the  Common 
Life  at  Deventer,  whose  story  was  so  beautifully  illustrated 
by  Thomas  a  Kempis,  and  those  of  any  organised  body 
that  is  to  be  seen  in  our  own  day.  But  there  is,  as  Abelard 
knew,  "  something  divine  in  every  noble  thought,"  ^  and 
the  kernel  remains  though  the  husk  may  perish.  We  do 
not  condemn  the  doctrine  of  the  Inner  Light  or  of  the  spark 
within  the  soul  because  the  Beghards  of  Alsace  in  the 
thirteenth  century  and  later  abolished  the  distinction 
between  the  Creator  and  the  created  or  claiming  as  Brethren 
of  the  Free  Spirit  an  antinomian  freedom  erred  concerning 
the  Faith.  There  are  certain  tendencies  of  the  human 
spirit  which  are  reproduced  from  age  to  age.  "  L'histoire 
ne  se  repete  jamais,  mais  les  hommes  se  ressemblent 
toujours  " — a  fact  to  which  testimony  is  borne  alike  by 
the  long  continuance  of  Montanism  and  by  the  upholders ; 
of  the  Eternal  Gospel  attributed  to  Joachim  of  Floris  and 
many  a  strange  eccentricity  of  individuals  or  of  communities 
of  our  own  time.  If  in  some  of  these  things  we  are  the 
heirs  of  the  Middle  Ages,  by  none  of  them,  let  us  remember, 
are  those  ages  represented  in  any  more  than  a  minor  degree. 
If  even  the  sermons  of  Bernard  of  Clairvaux  on  the  Song 
of  Songs,  following  a  method  of  interpretation  which  goes 
'  Poole,  op.  cit.,  p.  170. 

75 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

back  to  Origen,  cannot  reconcile  many  to  an  exegesis 
which,  historically  regarded,  they  would  pronounce  to 
have  been  profoundly  mischievous,  yet  in  the  same  century 
we  may  trace  the  growth  of  a  demand  for  a  more  historical 
treatment  of  Scripture. 

Look  yet  deeper.  Thousands  and  tens  of  thousands,  even 
though  they  may  not  know  of  the  obligation,  still  find  comfort 
and  inspiration  for  their  devotions  in  language  drawn  from 
mediaeval  sacramentaries,  Gregorian,  Leonian,  Mozarabic, 
from  the  Breviaries  of  Rome  and  of  Sarum,  from  Augustine 
or  Alcuin  or  even  from  Anselm  and  Aquinas.  Still  the 
Fioretti  of  Francis  of  Assisi  appeal  with  the  quaint  simplicity 
of  the  fourteenth  century  to  many  who  would  understand 
as  little  of  the  learned  disputations  of  the  world  in  which 
the  book  was  written  as  St  Francis  himself  would  have 
done  a  century  earlier.  And  still  the  Imitation  of  Christ — 
whether  it  be  written  by  A  Kempis  or  by  Hilton  matters 
little  to  its  readers — speaks  to  conscience  and  kindles  love 
with  a  power  which  no  later  work  has  ever  rivalled. 

Of  the  religious  inspiration  of  the  Art  of  the  Middle 
Ages  others  must  be  left  to  speak  :  it  would  furnish 
material  for  many  lectures.  Who  has  not  felt  it — in  our 
own  great  Abbey  of  Westminster,  in  many  of  the  great 
cathedrals  of  England  or  of  France,  in  some  parish  church 
which  has  escaped  restoration  by  a  miracle  or  more 
miraculously  survived  it }  He  understands  little  of  the 
Middle  Ages  who  has  not  studied 

This  that  never  ends. 
Still  climbing,  luring  fancy  still  to  climb, 
As  full  of  morals  half-divined  as  life. 
Graceful,  grotesque,  with  ever  ntw  surprise 
Of  hazardous  caprices  sure  to  please. 
Heavy  as  nightmare,  airy-light  as  fern. 
Imagination's  very  self  in  stone  ! 
76 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

But  of  one  debt  less  generally  recognised,  perhaps,  but 
of  even  wider  significance  something  must   be   said.      It 
is  in  regard  to  the   hymns  which  we  sing.     Even  if  we 
set  aside  as  too  early  to  be  included  with  fairness  those 
associated  with  the  names  of  St  Ambrose,  of  Sedulius  or 
Prudentius,  of  Synesius  of  Cyrene  or  the  earliest  hymns 
of  the  Eastern  Church  there  remains  an  astonishing  collec- 
tion.    John  Mason  Neale's  hymn  "  The  day  is  past  and 
over  "  is  from  the  Late  Evening  Service  of  the  Orthodox 
Church,  and  goes  back  to  the  sixth  century.     From  the 
eighth  are  derived  "  Come,  ye  faithful,  raise  the  strain  Of 
triumphant  gladness  "  and  "  The  Day  of  Resurrection," 
both  by  St  John  of  Damascus,  and  from  the  ninth  "  Stars 
of  the  morning  so  gloriously  bright  "  by  St  Joseph  the 
Hymnographer.     But   the   mediaeval  hymns  of  the  West 
have  naturally  possessed  a  greater  attraction  for  translators. 
From  Venantius    Fortunatus,    Bishop   of  Poitiers    in    the 
sixth  century,  we  inherit  "  The  royal  banners  forward  go  " 
and   **  Sing,   my   tongue,   the  glorious   battle,"   both  first 
sung  as  relics  of  the  Cross   were   borne   from   Tours   to 
Poitiers,  and  the  "  Salve,  festa  dies,"  "  Hail,  festal  day!  " 
which   many    have   taken    in    hand    to   translate.     "  Jesu 
the  Father's  only  Son  "  is  perhaps  of  the  same   age.      In 
the  following  century  Ireland  gives  us  "  Draw  nigh  and 
take  the  Body  of  the  Lord,"  and  not  much  later  are  **  Jesu, 
our  Hope,  our  heart's  Desire  "  and  "  Blessed  City,  heavenly 
Salem,"  with  its  second  part,  the  "  Angularis  fundamentum 
Lapis   Christus  missus  est,"  on  which  are  based  "  Christ 
is  made  the  sure  Foundation  "  and  "  Christ  is  our  corner- 
stone."    To  St  Theodulph  of  Orleans  (c   820)  we  owe 
**  All  glory,  laud,  and  honour,"  and  possibly  to  Rabanus 
Maurus,  Archbishop  of  Maintz  in  the  same  century,  the 
**  Veni    Creator    Spiritus,"    so    familiar    to    us    in    Bishop 

77 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

Cosin's  seventeenth-century  version,  "  Come,  Holy  Ghost, 
our    souls  inspire  "  ;  while  from  St  Gall  in   Switzerland 
we  have  "  The  strain  upraise  of  joy  and  praise.  Alleluia  !  " 
At  Canterbury  in  the  tenth  century  you  might  have  heard 
the  canons  singing  "  Conditor  alme  siderum,  Sterna  lux 
credentium  " — "  Creator   of  the  starry  height."     To  the 
same  period  belongs  "Hark  !  a  thrilling  voice  is  sounding," 
a  great  Advent  hymn,  and  little  later  are  two  hymns  still 
more  famous — "Alleluia,  song  of  sweetness  "  ("Alleluia, 
dulce    carmen  "),    and   "  Sing  Alleluia   forth  in   duteous 
praise,"    of  whose   history  in   both  cases  the  best-known 
facts  are  associated  with  the  disuse  of  the  '  Alleluia  '  they 
proclaim,  according  to  a  curious  ecclesiastical   perversity 
not     unobservable     in     other    connexions.      Dr     Walter 
Frere,  of  the  Community  of  the  Resurrection,  to  whose 
magnificent  historical  edition  of  Hymns  Ancient  and  Modern  ^ 
all  students  of  the  subject,  and  not  least  the  present  writer, 
owe  unstinted  gratitude,  recalls  to  mind  in  regard  to  this 
the    mediaeval    custom    of    burying     the    '  Alleluia '     at 
Septuagesima    in  a  coffin  with  full  funeral    ceremonies — 
a  custom  which  is  said  to  have  lasted  until  the  fifteenth 
century.     To  St  Fulbert  of  Chartres,  who  died  in  1028, 
is  due  "  Ye  choirs  of  new  Jerusalem,"  and  to  the  same 
century  belongs  the  famous  poe/n  formerly  attributed  to 
St   Bernard   but   now  assigned   to   a   Benedictine  abbess, 
which  has  given  us  three  hymns — "  Jesu,  dulcis  memoria," 
rendered    as    "  Jesu,    the    very    thought    is    sweet,"    or 
"  Jesu,    the   very    thought    of   Thee " ;    "  Jesu,    dulcedo 
cordium,"     "  Jesu,     the   joy    of    loving    hearts  "  ;    and 
"  Jesu,    Rex  admirabilis,"  "  O  Jesu,  King  most  wonder- 
ful."    To    Bernard   of   Morlas   or   Cluny   in   the   twelfth 
century  belongs  with  better  right  the  great  poem  of  over 

^  (London:  William  Clowes  &  Sons,  Ltd.,  1909.) 
78 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

3000  lines  from  which  are  derived  "  Brief  Kfe  is  here  our 
portion,"  "  The  world  is  very  evil,"  "  For  thee,  O  dear, 
dear  country,"  and  "  Jerusalem  the  golden."  Equally 
well  known,  and  perhaps  even  more  popular,  is  "  O  Quanta, 
qualia  sunt  ilia  sabbata,"  "  O  what  the  joy  and  the  glory 
must  be,"  which  comes  from  the  collection  of  hymns  made 
by  Abelard  for  Helo'ise  in  1 129.  As  one  hears  people  sing- 
ing the  "Pange  lingua,"  "Of  the  glorious  Body  telling," 
with  its  second  part  "  Tantum  ergo,"  "  Therefore  we, 
before  Him  bending";  the  "  Verbum  supernum  pro- 
diens,"  "The  Heavenly  Word  proceeding  forth,"  with  its 
second  part  "O  salutaris  hostia,"  "O  saving  Victim"; 
or  the  "  Adoro  te  devote,  latens  deitas,"  "  Thee  we 
adore,  O  hidden  Saviour,  Thee,"  one  sometimes  wonders 
how  much  we  have  learnt  in  our  day  and  in  our  own  ex- 
perience of  the  blending  of  reason  with  faith  and  faith  with 
reason  which  was  taught  by  the  great  scholastic  who  wrote 
those  hymns — St  Thomas  of  Aquinum  in  the  thirteenth 
century.  To  the  greatest  Pope  of  that  century,  Innocent 
III,  are  assigned,  though  not  with  certainty,  "  Veni  Sancte 
Spiritus,"  "  Come,  Thou  Holy  Spirit,  come,"  and  "  Stabat 
mater  dolorosa,"  "  At  the  Cross  her  station  keeping." 
And  it  may  help  us  to  understand  a  little  more  of  the  spirit 
of  the  Middle  Ages  that  the  author  of  the  "  Dies  ir^," 
"  Day  of  wrath  !  O  Day  of  mourning  !  "  should  have 
been  Thomas  of  Celano,  the  friend  and  biographer  of  St 
Francis.  Our  list  of  debts  to  the  Middle  Ages  might  be 
largely  extended,  but  we  may  close  it  with  the  mention  of 
three  from  the  collection  assigned  to  Thomas  a  Kempis. 
"  O  Love,  how  deep  !  how  broad  !  how  high  !  "  ("  O 
Amor  quam  ecstaticus  !");  "If  there  be  that  skills  to 
reckon  All  the  number  of  the  blest  "  ("  Quisquis  valet 
numerare");  and  "Light's  abode,  celestial  Salem." 

79 


MEDIi^VAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

Jerusalem  luminosa  I  It  is  the  brighter  side,  the  undying 
hope  of  the  Christian's  faith.  In  passing  from  the  Middle 
Ages  to  the  period  of  the  Reformation  men  did  not  change 
their  Hell  but  only  their  view  of  its  occupants.  And 
though  in  the  preaching  of  our  day  the  emphasis  has 
shifted  almost  immeasurably,  as  some  of  us  can  recognise 
whose  memories  go  back  perhaps  no  more  than  thirty 
years,  the  number  is  probably  growing  rather  than  decreas- 
ing of  those  who  would  understand  what  Carlyle  meant 
when  in  his  lecture  on  "  The  Hero  as  Poet  "  he  says  that 
"  Dante,  the  Italian  man,  was  sent  into  our  world  to 
embody  musically  the  Religion  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the 
Religion  of  our  Modern  Europe,  its  Inner  Life,"  even 
though  Carlyle's  modern  Europe  is  now  eighty  years 
behind  us. 

An  historian  of  Italian  name  writing  in  a  great  French 
history  has  found  himself  able  to  give  to  Dante  rather  less 
than  ten  scattered  lines  which  tell  us  that  he  was  a  Floren- 
tine, a  scholastic,  that  he  attacked  Boniface  VIII,  wrote 
the  De  Monarchia^  and  in  the  Divine  Comedy  prepared  the 
cult  of  antiquity  for  the  Renaissance  that  was  to  come.  So 
much  for  the  modern  historian  on  what  Carlyle  calls  "  the 
most  remarkable  of  all  modern  Books,"  the  "  mystic  Song, 
at  once  of  one  of  the  greatest  human  souls,  and  of  the 
highest  thing  that  Europe  had  hitherto  realised  for  itself." 
And  yet  the  last  two  cantos  of  the  Paradiso  are,  one  might 
suppose,  the  most  characteristic  expression  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  on  more  sides  than  one,  that  can  anywhere  be  found. 
Cicero,  Vergil,  St  Paul,  St  Augustine  of  Hippo,  St  Thomas 
of  Aquinum — many  have  read  them  since,  even  perhaps 
understood  them  better  ;  but  what  makes  the  Divine 
Comedy  different  from  a  Sic  etNon  is  the  poet  himself;  and 
as  the  poet  is  often  the  true  historian,  even  though  here 
80 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

and  there  his  blunder  may  evoke  a  footnote  of  learned 
superiority,  so  we  may  venture  to  think  he  is  often  and 
again  the  true  theologian.  Not  that  Dante's  theology  is 
more  or  less  complete  than  that  of  the  Fathers  or  of  the 
writers  of  the  Reformation :  it  is  different  in  kind ;  and 
there  is  another  side  which  few  perhaps  save  the  mystics 
could  grasp  from  the  days  of  Augustine  to  the  nineteenth 
century.  "  God  has  ordained  that  the  Pauline  aspect  of 
Christianity,  and  the  Pauline  nomenclature,  should  for  the 
last  three  hundred  years  at  least  mould  almost  exclusively 
the  thoughts  of  His  church:  but  we  must  not  forget,  that 
St  John's  thoughts,  and  St  John's  words,  are  equally  in- 
spired with  those  of  St  Paul."  So  wrote  Charles  Kingsley 
in  his  preface  to  Miss  Winkworth's  edition  of  Tauler's 
History  and  Lije}  And  as  men  in  our  own  time  turn  from 
a  Paulinism,  distorted,  misinterpreted,  perhaps  sometimes 
outgrown,  from  the  cramping  fetters  of  Augustinianism 
or  an  etiolating  modernism  which  leaves  the  mind  unsatis- 
fied and  the  soul  unfed,  to  the  Christ  whom  Paul  preached, 
they  may  learn  with  Dante  from  the  questionings  of  St 
John  to  understand  the  cords  that  draw  them  to  the  Divine 
Wisdom,  the  Incarnate  Word  whom  Paul  also  knew.  And 
perhaps,  too,  they  may  find  something  more.  For  if  the 
Middle  Ages  open  with  the  dream  of  the  City  of  God,  it  is 
certain  that  our  modern  age  which  has  inherited  the  dream 
is  tending  toward  a  struggle  for  results  more  utilitarian, 
but  likely  to  be  less  satisfying.  And  the  last  canto  of  the 
Paradiso  may  still  have  its  lesson ;  for  its  end  is  the  vision 
of  the  Light  Eternal  and  a  will  wholly  guided,  moved, 
and  turned  at  length  by  the  Love  that  moves  the  sun  and 

the  other  stars. 

Claude  Jenkins 

*  Republished  1905  (London  :  H.  R.  AUenson). 

F  81 


Ill 

PHILOSOPHY 

THE  inquiry  which  I  propose  to  undertake  I  have 
formulated  in  the  following  question.  Is  there  any 
dominating  concept  in  our  modern  mind,  giving  it 
a  definite  and  characteristic  direction  in  the  search  for 
truth,  warping  it  perhaps  with  a  distinctive  bias,  which  it 
does  not  derive  from  ancient  Greece,  and  which  it  would  not 
possess  had  it  not  lived  through  the  dominating  concepts  of 
the  mediaeval  period  ?  I  hope  it  will  be  possible  to  suggest, 
not  merely  a  vague  and  general,  but  a  precise  answer. 

The  method  I  must  follow  in  such  an  inquiry  is  different 
from  that  of  the  historian  who,  studying  original  records 
and  documents,  endeavours  to  discover  the  origin  and  trace 
the  development  of  the  ideas  which  have  materialised  in 
institutions.  It  is  different  also  from  that  of  the  student 
of  the  history  of  philosophy  who,  studying  the  connected 
narratives,  attempts  to  give  an  inventory  of,  or  make  a  classi- 
fied catalogue  of,  the  philosophical  output  of  a  period  and 
appreciate  its  value.  My  method  is  to  look  at  history  in 
its  grand  outlines  and,  disregarding  minutiae  and  details, 
to  endeavour  to  discover  and  lay  bare  the  concepts  which 
dominate  the  mentality  of  a  period,  concepts  which  find 
expression  in  its  art,  religion,  philosophy,  political  and 
social  institutions.  The  history  of  any  period  can  only  be 
interpreted,  it  seems  to  me,  when  we  are  able  to  discover 
and  understand  the  concepts  of  reality  which  determine 

82 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

its  philosophy.  For  example,  during  the  first  centuries 
of  the  Christian  era  the  pure  Greek  philosophy  still  lived 
and  developed  side  by  side  with  the  Christian  concepts 
which  were  becoming  increasingly  dominant.  There  was, 
that  is  to  say,  not  only  an  influence  of  Greek  philosophy  on 
Christian  doctrine  ;  there  was  also  a  contrast  and  competi- 
tion between  them.  We  have  recently  had  our  attention 
called  to  this  in  the  very  valuable  work  of  Dean  Inge  on 
the  philosophy  of  Plotinus.  I  mention  this  work  not 
merely  because  it  illustrates  the  method  I  propose,  nor  on 
account  of  its  high  value  as  a  contribution  to  history  and 
to  philosophy,  but  because  it  affords  me  a  starting-point 
for  the  philosophical  reflection  I  am  about  to  follow.  The 
great  service  which  it  appears  to  me  Dean  Inge  has  ren- 
dered to  contemporary  philosophy  is  that  in  his  lucid 
exposition  of  the  history  of  that  last  period  of  the  ancient 
philosophy,  the  neoplatonic,  he  has  brought  out  with  in- 
cisive clearness  the  nature  of  the  dominating  concept  in 
the  mentality  of  the  Greek  world.  It  was  the  concept  of 
a  reality  purely  intelligible,  eternal  and  perfect,  a  world  of 
fixed  forms,  change  being  unreal  and  time  the  moving 
image  of  eternity.  The  philosophical,  apart  from  the  his- 
torical, value  of  Dean  Inge's  work  is  due  in  great  measure 
to  the  fact  that  he  has  not  only  expounded  that  concept 
with  sympathetic  appreciation,  but  he  has  let  it  take  hold 
of  him.  Proclaiming  himself  a  Platonist,  he  has  thrown 
down  a  challenge  to  the  modern  world  in  his  rejection  of 
the  idea  of  progress.  This  idea  is  so  deeply  rooted  in  our 
modern  thought,  so  intimate  a  part  of  our  science,  politics, 
and  religion,  particularly  since  the  principle  of  evolution 
has  become  generally  accepted,  that  to  challenge  it  is,  in 
effect,  to  challenge  the  intellectual  soundness  of  the  con- 
cept on  which  modern  civilisation  rests.      In  contrast  with 

83 


MEDIv^VAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

the  philosophy  of  ancient  Greece,  particularly  in  its  final 
period,  the  dominating  concept  in  our  philosophy  to-day 
is  the  reality  of  change.  We  may  be  said  to  have  turned 
away  from  the  contemplation  of  things  sub  specie  ^eternitatis^ 
and  to  be  absorbed  in  the  problems  of  activity,  evolution, 
and  relativity. 

I  do  not  defend  the  idea  of  progress  in  so  far  as  it  can 

be  taken  to  mean  the  attainment  by  the  modern  world  of 

a  higher  plane  of  existence  as  judged  by  its  ethical,  social, 

political,  or  religious  standards,  nor  do  I  think  there  exists 

any  criterion  by  which  the  standards  themselves  can  be 

judged,  but  I  do  hold  that  the  modern  world  is  dominated 

by  the  concept  of  reality  as  activity,  and  the  philosophy 

which  seems  to  me  effectively  interpretative  in  our  world 

'     to-day  is  not  Platonism,  a  philosophy  of  unchanging  forms, 

\     but  a  philosophy  of  change,  based  on  a  new  concept  of 

\    time  and  history. 

It  is  to  me  a  significant  fact  that  Bergson,  who  has  given 
such  forcible  expression  to  this  dominating  concept  of 
modern  thought,  the  reality  of  change,  had  his  interest  in 
the  philosophical  problem  awakened,  and  the  direction  of 
his  speculation  directed,  by  the  study  of  Plotinus.  The 
effect  of  that  study  on  Bergson  was,  however,  so  he  has  told 
us,  to  convince  him  that  the  last  and  greatest  effort  of  the 
ancient  philosophy  ended  in  failure,  that  if  philosophy  is 
to  succeed  it  must  seek  out  and  follow  a  new  way.  The 
concept  of  change  as  fundamentally  real,  of  time  as  the 
very  stuff  of  reality,  is  the  direct  opposite  of  the  Platonic 
theory  of  the  eternal  forms.  Identifying  myself  with  the 
philosophy  of  change,  regarding  it  as  what  is  most  charac- 
teristic of  the  modern  spirit,  I  proceed  to  inquire  what  there 
is  in  the  dominating  concept  of  the  mediaeval  mind  which 
may  have  served  to  give  birth  to  it. 
84 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

History  is  continuous.  When  we  view  it  from  within 
there  are  no  transitions,  no  breaks  in  its  flow.  When  we 
view  it  externally,  however,  it  appears  as  a  stream  of 
events  in  which  we  mark  off  very  sharply  the  beginnings 
and  ends  of  periods.  In  the  history  of  philosophy  the  old 
Greek  period  comes  definitely  to  an  end  and  the  modern 
period  has  a  definite  beginning.  The  two  events  are 
separated  by  an  intervening  period  which  we  describe 
vaguely  as  the  middle  age  or  mediaeval  period  and  which, 
whatever  value  we  assign  to  it,  in  regard  to  philosophy, 
when  compared  with  the  Greek  and  the  modern  periods, 
appears  emphatically  negative.  The  middle  age  seems  to 
separate  the  old  philosophy  from  the  new,  and  not  in  any 
respect  to  supply  a  connecting  link.  This  negative  char- 
acter of  the  mediaeval  philosophy  is  the  more  pronounced  by 
reason  of  the  quite  definite  events  which  we  are  accustomed 
to  assign  as  marking  the  end  of  the  old  and  the  beginning 
of  the  new.  Greek  philosophy,  which  had  developed  con- 
tinuously for  more  than  a  thousand  years,  died  a  violent 
death  when  Justinian  closed  the  schools  of  Athens  in  the 
year  529,  and  modern  philosophy  was  literally  born,  and 
began  a  new  life,  when  Descartes  published  the  Discours 
de  la  Methode  in  the  year  1637.  In  the  two  centuries 
which  immediately  preceded  this  new  birth  Europe  had 
witnessed  the  renascence  of  classical  learning,  the  refor- 
mation in  religion,  and  the  rise  of  the  natural  sciences,  but 
philosophy,  as  we  recognise  it  to-day,  in  its  special  problems, 
its  principles,  and  its  methods,  began  with  Descartes.  In 
the  true  sense  he  is  its  father.  A  period,  therefore,  of  over  a 
thousand  years  separates  ancient  and  modern  philosophy. 

Two  opposite  and  conflicting  views  are  held  to-day  with 
regard  to  the  philosophy  of  this  middle  period.  Increasing 
knowledge    has    toned   down    sharp    historical  judgments 

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MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

and  blunted  the  incisiveness  of  verdicts.  Nevertheless, 
there  are  many  who  still  take  the  view  that  in  the  Middle 
Ages  philosophy,  in  the  only  true  meaning  of  the  word,  did 
not  and  could  not  exist.  Throughout  the  whole  period, 
according  to  this  view,  there  is  desolation.  Philosophy 
could  not  exist  by  reason  of  the  repressive  legislation  of 
religion  exercising  authority  over  the  reason.  It  was  a 
period,  we  are  told,  when  the  human  mind  was  in  bondage, 
when  reason  was  suppressed  and  human  life  in  consequence 
became  degraded  and  sunk  in  superstition.  Gibbon  is  in 
large  measure  responsible  for  this  view,  and  has  given 
forcible  expression  to  it.  Following  his  account  of  the 
suppression  of  the  schools  of  Athens  by  Justinian,  he  says  : 

The  Gothic  arms  were  less  fatal  to  the  Schools  of  Athens 
than  the  establishment  of  a  new  religion,  whose  ministers 
superseded  the  exercise  of  reason,  resolved  every  question  by  an 
article  of  faith,  and  condemned  the  infidel  or  sceptic  to  eternal 
flames.  In  many  a  volume  of  laborious  controversy  they 
exposed  the  weakness  of  the  understanding  and  the  corruption 
of  the  heart,  insulted  human  nature  in  the  sages  of  antiquity, 
and  proscribed  the  spirit  of  philosophical  inquiry,  so  repugnant 
to  the  doctrine,  or  at  least  to  the  temper,  of  an  humble  believer.^ 

The  irony  of  the  passage  has  lost  its  bite,  but  the  view 
it  represents  survives.  A  student  presenting  himself  for  an 
Honours  Degree  in  philosophy  in  this  university  is  required 
to  know  the  history  of  ancient  philosophy  and  the  history 
of  modern  philosophy,  from  Descartes  to  Kant,  and  must 
have  special  knowledge  of  the  books  of  those  periods,  but 
mediaeval  philosophy  is  no  part  of  the  course.  Were  anyone 
to  offer  a  thesis  in  it  he  would  probably  be  referred  to  the 
department  of  history  or  theology. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  many  who  can  claim  to  be 
representative  exponents  of  modern  thought  who  hold  that 

^  Decline  and  Fall,  chap.  xi. 

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TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

the  mediaeval  period,  and  more  particularly  the  later  part 
of  that  period  to  which  the  scholastic  philosophy  belongs, 
was  that  in  which  philosophy  in  its  true  meaning,  both 
as  a  formal  science  of  reasoning  and  as  a  material  science 
of  metaphysic,  ontology,  and  theology,  attained  its  zenith. 
In  the  Catholic  universities  and  seminaries,  philosophy, 
quite  distinct  from  dogmatic  theology,  is  the  subject  of  a 
long  and  laborious  discipline,  and  the  history  and  text- 
books deal  exclusively  with  the  schoolmen. 

Now  both  these  views — the  view  that  philosophy  in  the 
Middle  Ages  was  non-existent  and  the  view  that  only  then 
did  philosophy  exist — have  some  truth,  for  each  follows 
a  perfectly  consistent  definition  of  the  particular  nature  of 
philosophy  and  of  its  content  or  subject-matter.  But 
there  is  a  third  view  which  rests  on  a  wholly  different  and 
profounder  meaning  of  philosophy.  This  is  the  view 
that  the  concept  which  found  expression  in  the  mediaeval 
period,  which  determined  the  direction  of  its  thought,  the 
bias  in  its  mentality,  and  the  character  of  its  social  and 
political  institutions,  is  a  philosophy.  Philosophy  is  not, 
that  is  to  say,  a  special  principle  or  a  special  method  which 
one  may  accept  and  another  reject ;  it  is  an  activity  of  the 
mind,  inherent  in  the  human  spirit,  its  life.  In  this  meaning 
philosophy  does  not  exist  at  one  time  and  not  exist  at 
another,  for  the  absence  of  any  particular  principle  or 
method  is  the  presence  of  another,  and  therefore  the 
very  negation  of  the  principle  of  one  philosophy  is  itself 
the  affirmation  of  another.  In  every  period  of  history  the 
expression  of  the  life  of  the  period  is  to  be  interpreted  by 
the  concept  which  determines  the  mentality  of  the  period. 
The  idea  of  an  historical  revelation  and  its  expression  in  the 
institution  of  an  authoritative  Church  is  based  on  a  concept 
of  philosophy. 

87 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

The  three  great  periods  into  which  the  history  of  Western 
civiHsation  is  divided,  the  Greek,  the  medieval,  the  modern, 
are  distinguished  by  their  philosophy.  In  each  there  is  a 
characteristic  outward  expression  of  a  concept  of  the 
nature  of  reahty,  and  it  dominates  the  mentaHty  and 
directs  the  activity.  The  dominating  concept  of  the  Greek 
mind  is  the  sovereign  supremacy  of  reason  as  interpreta- 
tive of  hfe  and  nature.  The  dominating  concept  of  the 
mediaeval  mind  is  history  as  the  revelation  of  meaning  and 
purpose — history  as  the  divine  event.  The  dominating 
concept  of  the  modern  mind  is  the  infallibility  of  the  ex- 
perimental method,  and  this  is  not  a  mere  reassertion  of 
the  principle  of  reason ;  it  is  a  new  thing,  giving  its  charac- 
teristic bent  to  the  modern  mind. 

From  this  standpoint  the  view  of  Gibbon  that  the  new 
religion,  in  whose  interest  the  schools  of  Athens  were 
closed,  destroyed  philosophy,  is  seen  to  be,  not  false,  but 
based  on  a  complete  misconception  of  what  philosophy 
really  is.  The  new  religion  rested  on  a  pure  concept  of 
philosophy.  The  special  character  and  the  particular  form 
of  expression  which  distinguished  it  outwardly  from  the 
religions  it  supplanted  were  adventitious,  but  the  concept 
on  which  it  depended  was  a  new  concept,  and  it  was  that 
underlying  and  supporting  concept  which  dominated  the 
mediaeval  mind.  We  may  trace  its  origin  to  Hellenistic  and 
Judaeistic  sources,  but  as  we  find  it  embodied  in  Chris- 
tian doctrine,  it  is  a  new  concept,  giving  a  bent  or  bias 
to  the  human  mind,  causing  it  to  express  itself  in  forms  of 
activity  wholly  new,  and  it  is  this  concept  which  gives  its 
characteristic  feature  to  the  thought  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

"  God  who  at  sundry  times  and  in  divers  manners  spake 
in  time  past  unto  the  fathers  by  the  prophets  hath  in  these 
last    days    spoken    unto  us   by  his  Son,   whom  he  hath 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

appointed  heir  of  all  things,  by  whom  also  he  made  the 
worlds."  If  we  suppress  in  these  words,  as  we  easily  can, 
the  special  application,  which  the  writer  intends  and  is 
about  to  make  explicitly,  to  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  we  may  read  in  them  the  pure  concept  of  philo- 
sophy which  they  express.  Stripped  of  all  special  reference, 
that  concept  is  the  concept  of  history  itself  revealing  reality. 
It  is  something  much  profounder  than  an  appeal  to  the 
belief  in  the  significance  of  facts  supported  by  the  evidence 
of  records.  It  is  the  concept  that  history  is  purpose  and 
reveals  purpose.  The  notion  of  gods  or  of  one  supreme 
God  was  a  general  notion.  The  idea  that  the  gods 
interested  themselves  in  human  affairs  and  occasionally 
made  known  their  will  in  particular  revelations  was  quite 
famiUar.  Homer  had  conceived  the  Trojan  War  as  having 
its  reflection,  and  also  its  deeper  causes,  in  the  conflicts  of 
the  gods.  Herodotus  had  conceived  history  on  the  analogy 
of  a  great  drama.  Thucydides  had  made  history  point 
a  political  moral.  The  Hebrew  chroniclers  had  presented 
history  as  the  expression  of  the  favour  or  anger  of  a  divine 
ruler.  But  here  there  is  a  totally  different  concept — a 
concept  which  finds  its  embodiment  in  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven,  the  City  of  God,  the  Universal  Church — the 
concept  of  historical  revelation. 

It  seems  to  me  that  we  owe  this  concept  to  the  Apostle 
Paul.  If  we  look  at  Christianity  as  a  philosophy,  it  is  clear 
that  the  founder,  Jesus  himself,  belongs  to  a  different 
category  from  that  in  which  we  place  the  philosophers. 
Paul  was  essentially  a  philosopher.  It  is  universally  ac- 
knowledged that  he  rationalised  the  new  religion  to  which 
he  was  converted,  his  mind  ready  prepared  in  the  Greek  and 
Hebrew  learning.  In  my  view  Paul  did  much  more  than 
this,  and  he  should  be  ranked  with  the  great  philosophers, 

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MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

with  those  who,  Uke  Plato,  Hke  Descartes,  Hke  Kant, 
have  given  expression  to  new  concepts — concepts  which 
have  transformed  and  reformed  the  mode  of  our  mentaHty. 
There  are  no  doubt  other  channels  by  which  philosophy 
entered  into  the  beliefs  of  the  new  religion,  but  it  seems  to 
me  that  Christianity  owes  its  dominating  concept,  and  that 
which  specially  stamps  it  as  a  philosophy,  as  something 
more  than  a  mere  rule  of  life,  to  the  Apostle  Paul.  Only 
consider  what  Christianity  would  have  been  without  it  ! 
There  is  an  instructive  parallel  in  Mohammedanism. 
Undoubtedly  there  is  a  philosophical  concept  of  the  nature 
of  reality  underlying  alike  the  gospel  of  Mohammed  and  the 
gospel  of  Jesus,  and  it  is  quite  a  fair  comparison  to  consider 
the  preachers  of  those  gospels  and  the  founders  of  those  new 
religions  as  representing  those  concepts.  Each  proclaims 
himself  a  prophet  sent  by  God  and  divinely  inspired  to 
reveal  to  men  a  new  way  of  life.  But  compare  the  religions. 
Where  in  Mohammedanism  do  we  find  anything  like  the 
profound  concept  which  comes  to  expression  in  Christianity 
in  the  words  "  the  fulness  of  time  "  ?  The  Jesus  whom  Paul 
preached  was  not  a  prophet  who  might  have  appeared 
at  any  time  and  whose  message  was  indifferent  to  his  par- 
ticular age.  Paul  has  a  completely  new  concept  of  history. 
History  is  reality  manifested  or  self-revealing.  Without 
this  Pauline  concept  Christianity  might  have  been  a  Sermon 
on  the  Mount — a  beautiful,  possibly  a  realisable,  ideal  of  life 
— it  would  not  have  been  to  mankind  a  new  concept  of 
reality  dominating  its  whole  mentaHty. 

The  mediaeval  mind  was  dominated,  then,  by  a  concept 
which,  I  maintain,  was  a  pure  concept  of  philosophy,  and 
it  found  expression  in  its  characteristic  institutions,  and 
especially  in  that  of  an  authoritative  Church.  What, 
then,  was  the  character  of  that  dominating  concept  ?  It 
90 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

cannot  be  denied  that,  judged  by  the  philosophy  which 
preceded  it  and  the  philosophy  which  succeeded  it,  it 
presents  to  us  a  distinctly  negative  character.  The  reason 
is  plain.  It  holds  within  it  an  inherent  contradiction. 
Throughout  the  whole  period  of  mediaeval  philosophy 
we  find  two  factors  in  continual  opposition,  a  principle 
of  reason  and  a  principle  of  faith.  The  whole  philo- 
sophic effort  is  an  attempt  to  reconcile  them,  to  justify 
authority  by  an  appeal  to  reason  in  the  interest  of  faith. 
It  ended  in  failure.  It  was  bound  to  do  so,  for 
the  only  principle  the  philosopher  could  invoke  to  recon- 
cile the  contradiction  was  the  principle  of  reason  of  the 
Greek  philosophy,  and  this  principle  was  itself  one  of  the 
opposing  factors.  It  is  this  inherent  contradiction  in  the 
mediaeval  mind  which  gives  to  its  philosophy  throughout 
the  whole  period  that  negative  character  which  it  assumes 
even  in  its  most  enlightened  exponents.  Credo  quia 
impossibile^  Credo  ut  intelUgam — these  are  its  watch- 
words. The  Pauline  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  is 
the  embodiment  of  the  contradiction.  The  faith  to  which 
Paul  appealed  was  not  intuition  or  any  form  of  the  mind 
reconcilable  with  reason.  It  was  an  irrational  and  an 
anti-rational  principle,  and  this  was  the  tragedy  so  far  as 
philosophy  is  concerned. 

I  maintain,  then,  that  despite  the  negative  character  of 
mediaeval  philosophy  and  the  inherent  contradiction  with 
which  it  had  to  struggle,  despite  the  fact  also  that  one  of 
the  conflicting  principles  was  the  principle  of  reason  itself, 
particularly  in  the  form  in  which  it  had  found  expression  in 
Greek  philosophy,  the  fundamental  concept  which  domi- 
nated the  thought  and  activity  of  the  whole  mediaeval  period 
was  not  anti-philosophical,  but  a  pure  concept  of  philosophy, 
the  concept  of  history  revealing  reality. 

91 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

I  want  now  to  direct  attention  to  another  significant  fact 
and  one  which  is  vital  for  the  appreciation  of  what  I  contend 
is  the  essentially  modern  concept,  the  concept  that  reality 
is  change.  Every  dominating  concept  creates  in  the  mind 
a  bias  or  inclination  giving  rise  to  a  mode  of  mentality.  We 
are  wholly  unconscious  of  this  bias  in  our  own  thinking, 
and  only  with  difficulty  become  conscious  of  it  if  we  compare 
the  mentality  of  one  historical  period  with  that  of  another. 
An  illustration  will  perhaps  make  my  meaning  clear. 
There  is  a  well-known  story  of  the  early  days  of  the  Royal 
Society  which  relates  that  some  one  appealed  to  the  members 
to  explain  why,  when  a  living  fish  is  placed  in  a  bowl  of 
water,  the  weight  is  not  increased,  whereas  it  is  if  the  fish 
be  dead.  It  is  said  that  several  ingenious  explanations 
were  put  forward  by  members  of  the  Society,  and  that 
Charles  II  came  to  hear  about  it.  He  was  curious  to  see 
the  experiment,  and  it  then  appeared  that  the  weight  was 
increased  just  the  same  whether  the  fish  was  alive  or  dead. 
Now  a  story  like  this  makes  an  immediate  appeal  to  the 
modern  mind.  We  have  a  natural  bias  or  bent  which  makes 
us  in  the  search  for  truth  depend  primarily,  and  rely  abso- 
lutely, on  the  experimental  method.  If  we  transport  our- 
selves in  imagination  into  the  Middle  Ages,  however,  and 
try  to  look  at  nature  as  the  mediaeval  mind  conceived  it,  we 
see  at  once  that  such  a  story  would  make  no  appeal  at  all. 
For  the  mediaeval  mind  the  unseen  world  was  full  of  occult 
forces,  it  was  peopled  with  malignant  and  beneficent  spirit 
agents,  the  scientific  workers  were  the  alchemists  and 
astrologers,  a  suspect  and  uncanny  folk,  and  successful  ex- 
periment depended  on  the  terms  the  experimenter  was  on 
with  those  spirit  agents  and  forces.  The  mind  naturally 
directed  its  attention  rather  to  the  experimenter  than  to  the 
experiment ;  it  was  his  control  of  natural  occult  influences 
92 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

which  was  supposed  to  determine  the  event.  But  now,  if  we 
transport  ourselves  in  imagination  to  ancient  Greece,  say  to 
Athens  in  the  fourth  century  B.C.,  we  feel  very  differently. 
The  Greek  mentality  seems  so  like  our  own  that  we  can 
easily  suppose  the  story  of  the  Royal  Society  adapted  to 
the  imagery  of  the  time,  and  told,  let  us  say,  by  Aristo- 
phanes as  having  occurred  at  the  Phrontisterion  of  Socrates 
described  in  The  Clouds.  Yet  if  we  reflect  we  shall  see 
that  this  too  is  quite  impossible.  To  the  Greek  men- 
tality the  story  would  be  pointless  and  its  moral  irrelevant — 
but  for  a  different  reason.  The  Greek  mentality  had  a 
bias  which  directed  the  mind  from  the  principle  to  the 
fact,  and  not  vice  versa.  It  would  have  been  natural  to 
the  Greek  philosopher  to  decide  the  principle  first  as  the 
Fellows  of  the  Royal  Society  are  said  to  have  done,  and  they 
would  not  necessarily  or  immediately  have  been  discon- 
certed by  the  failure  of  the  experiment.  I  doubt  if  it 
would  have  seemed  relevant  to  the  Greek  to  make  the 
experiment ;  I  am  sure  it  would  not  have  seemed  the  primary 
condition  to  satisfy.  It  was  not  because  it  did  not  happen 
to  occur  to  Aristotle  to  make  experiments  like  those  which 
Galileo  made  on  the  inclined  plane,  and  from  the  leaning 
tower  of  Pisa,  that  Aristotle  did  not  forestall  by  nearly  two 
thousand  years  Galileo's  discoveries.  It  never  could  have 
occurred  to  Aristotle  to  investigate  nature  in  that  order, 
for  the  bent  or  bias  of  his  mentality  would  not  allow 
his  mind  to  take  that  direction.  The  Greeks  were, 
indeed,  pre-eminently  mathematicians,  but  mathematics 
indicates  an  entirely  different  direction  of  thought  from 
that  of  modern  experimental  philosophy.  I  can  quite  well 
imagine,  for  example,  that  a  Greek  might  have  discovered 
Einstein's  principle  of  relativity.  It  is  exactly  the  kind  of 
theory  which  would  have  appealed  with  special  force  to  the 

93 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

Greek  mind.  I  am  quite  sure,  however,  that  if  a  Greek 
philosopher  had  formulated  the  principle  it  would  not  have 
occurred  to  him  as  the  first  condition  of  recommending  its 
acceptance  that  he  should  be  able  to  devise  some  means  by 
which  it  could  be  brought  to  an  experimental  test.  That 
direction  of  Einstein's  thought  is  peculiarly  modern.  I  do 
not  mean  that  the  ancients  did  not  experiment.  I  do  not 
forget  Archimedes  and  his  practical  devices.  What  I 
refer  to  is  the  unqualified  confidence  which  the  modern 
mind  has  in  experiment.  No  better  instance  of  it  can  be 
given  than  the  principle  of  relativity  to  which  I  have  referred. 
This  originated  in  a  single  experiment,  the  famous  ex- 
periment of  Michelson  and  Morley,  the  result  of  which  was 
disconcerting,  and  which  appeared  also  irrational  and  para- 
doxical in  the  highest  degree;  but  the  experiment  as  a  test 
of  truth  was  never  challenged.  The  experiment  was 
repeated  indeed,  but  only  to  test  the  conditions,  not  the 
authority,  of  the  experiment. 

The  mediaeval  mind  presents  a  complete  contrast  to  the 
modern  mind  in  this  respect.  Take  as  an  example  the 
mediaeval  attitude  toward  a  doctrine  like  that  of  the  Real 
Presence,  which  filled  so  preponderating  and  central  a 
place  in  the  popular  imagination  as  to  the  nature  of 
the  Christian  scheme  of  redemption  and  the  Christian 
cosmogony  generally.  I  do  not  refer,  of  course,  to  the 
doctrine  itself  as  a  religious  dogma,  or  to  its  inner  meaning 
or  truth,  or  to  any  philosophical  problem  it  raises.  I  refer 
only  to  the  imagery  in  which  the  doctrine  presented  itself 
to  the  mediaeval  mind.  Over  and  over  again  we  find  this 
taking  definite  materialistic  shape  and  giving  rise  to  tales 
of  wonderful  appearances,  tales  which  claim  to  verify  the 
actual  fact  of  miracle  in  its  grosser  as  apart  from  its  spiritual 
meaning.  To  us  such  claims  would  immediately  challenge 
94 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

laboratory  tests.  Why  did  they  not  to  the  mediaeval  mind  ? 
Surely  not  on  account  of  sacrilege ;  to  suppose  this  is  to 
miss  the  whole  point  of  their  claim  to  be  evidence.  The 
reason  is  that  the  mediaeval  mind  did  not  work  that  way, 

A  story  is  told  of  St  Thomas  Aquinas  which  illustrates 
very  markedly  the  difference  between  the  mediaeval  and 
the  modern  mind  in  regard  to  what  we  call  evidence.  In 
1 27 1  (three  years  before  he  died)  Aquinas  was  appointed 
to  the  chair  of  theology  at  Naples,  and  the  following  anec- 
dote, which  I  quote  from  Mr  O'Neill's  introduction  to  his 
Things  New  and  Old  in  St  Thomas  Aquinas^  relates  to  this 
time.  Romanus,  to  whom  Aquinas  had  but  recently 
resigned  the  chair  of  theology  at  Paris,  appeared  to  him 
and  told  him  that  he  was  dead  and  now  in  heaven  !  Aqui- 
nas immediately  asked  :  "  Do  acquired  habits  remain  to  us 
in  heaven  }  "  Romanus  replied  that  God  absorbed  all 
his  thoughts.  Aquinas  then  asked:  "Do  you  see  Him 
immediately  or  by  means  of  some  similitude  ?  "  To 
appreciate  the  mentality  thus  disclosed,  compare  the  story 
with  any  of  the  modern  stories  of  communications  with 
the  dead,  with  the  famous  "  Honolulu  "  story  in  Raymond^ 
for  example.  (The  medium  professing  to  be  the  vehicle  of 
Raymond's  communication  uttered  the  word  chosen  as  a 
test,  there  being  a  practical  certainty  of  the  entire  absence 
of  collusion.)  What  strikes  us  at  once  is  how  in  the  one 
case  the  questions  directly  concern  what  the  inquirer  is 
eager  to  know,  and  reveal  an  underlying  assurance  that 
the  answers  will  themselves  provide  the  evidence  or  verifi- 
cation. In  the  other  case,  the  information  sought  is  always 
trivial,  intended  only  to  afford  evidence.  Modern'psychical 
research  is  entirely  absorbed  in  the  evidential  character  of 
alleged  communications,  and  has  no  use  for,  and  does  not 
look  for,  intrinsic  value  in  their  content.     This  difference 

95 


MEDIi^VAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

is  not  to  be  explained  by  saying  that  the  Middle  Ages 
were  a  period  of  faith  while  our  modern  age  is  a  period  of 
doubt.  Faith  and  doubt  are  not  characteristics  of  periods. 
It  is  a  difference  in  the  mental  bias,  and  this  bias  is  formed 
by  the  dominating  philosophical  concept. 

What,  then,  was  the  dominating  concept  which 
determined  the  mentality  of  the  Middle  Ages  ?  It  found 
expression  in  the  Christian  idea  of  divine  revelation,  of  a 
fore-ordained  Redeemer,  and  of  an  authoritative  Church 
supported  by  Scripture  and  tradition.  All  this,  however, 
was  its  imaginative  clothing,  its  embodiment.  Let  us 
strip  off  the  particular  religious  beliefs  and  the  particular 
application  to  historical  personages  and  events,  and  we 
find  a  concept  of  history,  distinct  from  the  ancient  concepts, 
Greek  or  Semitic,  and  distinct  from  and  in  marked  contrast 
to  our  modern  concept.  It  is  the  concept  of  the  whole 
course  of  universal  human  history,  not  as  directed  by  God, 
not  as  ruled  or  overruled  by  divine  providence,  but  as  the 
real  work  itself  which  God  is  in  process  of  accomplishing. 
The  history  to  which  Paul  appealed,  and  which  he  intel- 
lectualised,  was  the  history  recorded  in  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures.  But  that  is  accidental,  or  at  any  rate  adven- 
titious. Paul  knows  no  other;  for  him,  the  Hebrew  record 
is  the  authentic  account  of  human  history  from  the  Crea- 
tion up  to  times  present.  The  Jews  are  the  central 
interest  indeed,  but  in  the  same  way  in  which  in  mediaeval 
cosmology  Jerusalem  is  the  centre  of  the  earth,  as  in  Greek 
cosmology  Delphi  had  been.  For  Paul,  the  first  man  is 
Adam,  through  whom  came  death,  and  the  second  Adam 
is  Jesus  Christ,  through  whom  has  come  eternal  life.  But 
it  is  no  longer  the  concept  of  a  creator  God,  who  has  made 
man  and  let  him  go  his  way,  at  times  repenting  that  he  has 
made  him,  and  even  despairing  of  him.     We  can  take 

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TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

away  from  the  concept  its  entire  mythological  embodiment, 
and  then  we  see  that  it  is  a  new  concept  of  history  itself. 
History  is  the  real  thing.  Not  only  is  purpose  revealed  in 
histor}',  but  history  is  the  embodiment  of  purpose. 

It  is  this  concept  which  makes  the  mediaeval  mind 
present  to  us  so  striking  a  contrast  to  the  old  Greek  mind 
and  to  the  modern  mind.  In  the  Greeks  we  have  the 
domination  of  mathematical  concepts,  in  the  moderns  we 
have  the  domination  of  scientific  concepts;  separating 
these,  and  presenting  the  contrast  of  a  direct  negation, 
we  have  in  the  mediaeval  mind  the  domination  of  spiritistic 
concepts.  It  affects  every  domain,  not  art,  religion,  and 
ethics  merely,  but  scientific  conceptions. 

Every  physicist  is  familiar  with  the  very  modern  hypo- 
thesis known  as  '  Clerk  Maxwell's  demon.'  The  famous 
professor  once  gave  a  striking  illustration  of  the  way  in 
which  a  law  of  nature  might  conceivably  be  reversed  in  its 
direction;  for  example,  how  heat  might  be  made  to  flow 
from  a  cool  to  a  hot  body  in  contradiction  to  the  law  of 
degradation  of  energy.  He  supposed  that  there  might 
be  a  demon  who,  without  adding  to,  or  taking  anything 
from,  the  sources  of  energy,  that  is,  without  creating  or 
destroying  physical  energy,  would  simply  open  or  shut  a 
door  in  the  path  of  an  individual  molecule.  The  notion 
of  a  demon  producing  real  effects  without  performing 
actual  work  is  strange  and  fantastic  to  us  only  because 
the  imagery  is  unusual,  a  mixture  of  mediaeval  and 
modern  conceptions  of  the  nature  of  causal  agency.  To 
the  mediaeval  mind  the  notion  of  a  demon  would  have 
been  commonplace.  The  whole  universe  was  full  of 
such  forces,  often  conceived  as  playing  fantastic  and 
mischievous  tricks.  Not  only  the  material  world  but  the 
mental  world,  human  life  and  history,  was  the  stage  and 

G  97 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

drama  of  spirit  forces.  We  smile  at  what  we  call  the  naive 
and  childish  ignorance  displayed  in  the  notion.  To  us 
it  is  not  only  pre-scientific,  but  anti-scientific.  This  is  to 
fail  to  understand  the  mentality.  It  is  a  view  of  nature 
which  follows  from  the  dominating  concept  that  in  history 
reality  is  revealing  itself  as  an  embodiment  of  universal 
purpose. 

When  we  endeavour  to  discover,  following  the  same 
method,  what  is  the  dominating  concept  in  our  modern 
period,  and  inquire  further  what  is  the  warp  or  bias  it  is 
giving  to  our  mentality,  we  meet  at  the  outset  a  formidable 
difficulty  to  which  we  must  at  least  be  respectful.  We 
are  ourselves  subject  to  the  warping  influence  of  the 
dominating  concepts  of  our  own  time,  and  the  very  principle 
we  invoke  warns  us  that  we  may  ourselves  each  individually 
be  prejudiced  by  our  own  particular  predilections  and  be 
following  our  own  warped  judgment  when  professing 
and  believing  that  we  are  interpreting  the  modern  mind. 
With  this  caution  kept  continually  before  us,  we  may  pro- 
ceed. There  is,  then,  characteristic  of  the  modern  mind, 
by  universal  agreement,  the  experimental  method.  This 
is  not  what  psychologists  name  the  principle  of  trial  and 
error,  nor  is  it  the  utilitarian  bent  in  human  intellectual 
nature  which  enables  it  to  profit  by  the  practical  devices 
which  it  may  invent  or  discover.  It  finds  expression  in 
the  notions  of  law  in  the  natural  world,  and  of  the  unity 
and  uniformity  of  nature.  As  a  method  it  depends  on  the 
concept  that  the  behaviour  of  anything  under  specified 
conditions  follows  from  and  reveals  the  whole  nature  of 
the  thing,  and  that  consequently  sufficient  knowledge  of 
the  history  of  anything  enables  us  to  predict  absolutely 
how  the  thing  will  behave  under  all  conditions.  We  do  not 
usually  attribute  this  concept  to  any  particular  philosopher's 

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TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

insight  or  to  any  individual  scientific  worker's  discovery. 
We  see  its  origin  in  the  gradual  rise  and  development  of 
positive  science,  and  it  appears  to  be  not  so  much  a  dis- 
covery as  an  emancipation  of  the  mind.  We  describe  the 
experimental  method  as  the  direct  interrogation  of  reality, 
and  the  employment  of  it  seems  natural  to  an  enlightened 
age.  It  does  not  seem  to  us  to  rest  on  any  concept  of 
reality,  and  so  far  from  appearing  to  warp  our  mentality 
it  seems  to  indicate  simple  freedom  from  every  kind  of 
warp.  Yet  reflection  will  show  that  beneath  this  expres- 
sion of  the  modern  mind  there  is  a  distinctive  concept,  and 
to  me  at  least  (I  am  obliged  to  speak  diffidently,  for  there 
are  many  and  discordant  voices)  it  is  a  new  concept  of  time 
and  history. 

In  speaking  of  a  dominating  concept  finding  expression 
in  the  modern  mind,  I  am  not  able  to  point  to  any  definite 
formulation  of  a  concept  of  reality  which  may  be  said  to  be 
at  once  recognisable  beneath  the  diverse  forms  of  the 
modern  problem.  These  concepts  do  not  spring  up 
before  us  and  present  themselves  "  in  questionable  shape." 
What  I  have  in  mind  is  a  tendency  rather  than  a  form, 
a  concept  vague  at  first  but  which  gradually  assumes  a 
definite  shape  as  we  watch  its  emergence  through  an 
historical  development.  The  experimental  method,  indeed, 
is  in  its  nature  and  origin  directly  associated  by  us  with 
a  materialistic,  or  at  least  with  a  definitely  mechanistic, 
concept  of  reality.  The  first  form  which  modern 
philosophy  assumed  when  it  took  shape  in  the  Cartesian 
system  was  that  of  a  rigid  mechanism.  But  it  contained 
from  the  first  a  principle  destined  to  alter  completely 
that  aspect.  It  is  only  when  we  look  at  the  course  of 
philosophical  speculation  from  Descartes  to  times  present 
as  one   continuous   unfolding,   or  development,   or  living 

99 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

evolution  that  we  are  able  to  discover  the  true  nature  of 
the  concept  which  is  dominating  it.  It  is  then  seen  that 
the  whole  tendency  of  modern  thought  is  to  pass  from 
a  static  to  a  dynamic  standpoint.  Externally  it  is  easily 
explicable  by  the  order  in  which  the  natural  sciences  have 
had  attention  concentrated  on  them  and  have  consequently 
perfected  their  methods.  First  in  order  to  receive  atten- 
tion are  the  mathematical  and  physical  sciences  dealing 
primarily  and  essentially  with  spatial  relations  and  generally 
with  space.  It  was  inevitable  that  it  should  be  so,  first 
because  the  new  science  is  closely  associated  with  the 
renascence  of  the  old  learning,  and  secondly  because  it  is 
the  astronomical  discovery,  the  Copernican  revolution, 
which  has  overthrown  the  mediaeval  cosmology.  In  the 
first  formulation  all  reality  is  conceived  in  terms  of  exten- 
sion and  movement,  and  movement  is  conceived  as  a  fixed 
quantity  and  purely  mechanical.  This  determined  also 
the  sciences  of  the  organism  and  of  the  mind,  physiology 
and  psychology,  which  slowly  differentiated  themselves. 
Science  remained  dominated  by  the  concept  of  reality  as 
fundamentally  spatial.  Not  till  two  hundred  years  after 
Descartes,  not  until  quite  close  to  our  present  era,  did  time 
begin  to  supplant  space  as  the  essential  form  of  what  is 
fundamentally  real.  It  is  only  in  Darwin  and  with  the  rise 
of  the  biological  sciences  that  time  and  history  begin  to 
present  the  central  metaphysical  problem.  But  it  is  not 
a  kaleidoscopic  change;  it  is  a  continuous  development, 
quite  definite  and  distinctive  in  its  tendency  and  direction. 
One  and  the  same  principle  is  at  work  from  Galileo  to 
Einstein,  from  Descartes  to  Bergson.  A  concept  of 
activity,  a  concept  of  reality  as  creation,  a  concept  of  change 
as  real,  a  concept  of  life  as  involving  the  fundamental 
reality  of  time  and  history,  is  the  dominating  concept  of 

lOO 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

the  modern  mind.  One  could  illustrate  it  abundantly, 
but  I  must  be  content  to  indicate  it.  In  every  one  of  the 
sciences  we  have  seen  a  complete  revolution  in  method 
and  standpoint.  It  is  premature,  perhaps,  to  say  that 
chemists  and  physicists  have  now  at  last  abandoned  the 
search  for  a  primordial  stuff,  but  it  no  longer  counts  or 
serves  as  a  necessary  hypothetical  basis  of  the  universe. 
It  is  energy,  not  stuff,  which  is  interpretative  in  science. 
The  atoms  of  modern  physics  and  chemistry  are  only 
in  name  identical  with  the  atoms  of  the  old  theory  of 
Democritus,  or  even  with  the  modern  theory  of  Dalton. 

The  essential  doctrine  of  the  philosophy  of  change  is 
that  stability,  shape,  repetition,  in  nature,  the  spatial  articu- 
lation of  reality,  are  derivative  and  not  original.  Space  is 
relative  to  the  intellect,  and  intellect  is  a  mode  of  activity 
the  particular  function  of  which  is  spatialisation.  The 
*  real '  things  which  our  intellect  apprehends  are  not 
shapes  cut  out  in  a  solid  matrix,  but  *  actions  '  virtual  or 
carried  out,  just  as  for  physical  science  mass  is  not  the 
continuous  solid,  but  a  function  of  the  trajectories  of  moving 
particles.  The  concept  which  underlies  this  philosophy 
is  that  history  is  reality,  that  the  past  is  present.  It  is 
what  Bergson  has  named  the  true  duration.  I  define,  then, 
the  dominating  concept  of  modern  thought  as  the  identity 
of  history  and  reality,  the  concept  of  history  not  as  the 
record  of  the  non-existent  past,  but  as  the  past  existing  in  a 
creative  present. 

I  now  come  to  the  question  with  which  I  opened.  Am 
I  able  to  answer  it  ?  I  have  tried  to  show  in  what  the 
essence  of  the  mediaeval  concept  consisted.  We  may  de- 
scribe it  as  an  anthropocentric  concept  of  history.  History 
is  not  merely  interpretative  of  human  life.  It  is  human 
life   realising   its   purpose.     Now   in    modern    thought    I 

lOI 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

have  maintained  that  the  dominating  concept  is  history, 
but  it  is  no  longer  anthropocentric,  it  is  no  longer  the 
realisation  of  purpose.  It  is  the  concept  of  history  as 
present  creative  activity.  Let  us  put  aside  the  meaning 
of  history  as  record,  as  what  has  been  but  is  not,  and  think 
of  history  as  the  essence  of  what  lives,  or  rather  of  life.  A 
living  thing  is  its  history,  and  its  past  is  present  in  its  life 
and  continually  creating.  This  is  a  new  concept;  there 
is  nothing  resembling  it  in  the  old  Greek  speculation.  It 
is,  as  I  tried  to  indicate  in  the  beginning,  the  antithesis  of  it. 
Should  we  have  ever  reached  it,  then,  had  not  modern 
philosophy  had  as  its  task  not  merely  to  recover  the  con- 
tinuity of  ancient  philosophy  but  also  to  solve  the  in- 
herent contradiction  which  the  mediaeval  concept  presented 
to  it  ? 

To  give  precision  and  definiteness  to  this  reflection  I 
will  give  an  historical  reference  which  may  illustrate  my 
meaning  better  than  argument.  Benedetto  Croce  has 
raised  to  notoriety  a  neglected  philosopher  who  lived  in 
Naples  at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century — 
Ciambattista  Vico.  He  was  professor  of  rhetoric  in  the 
university  of  his  city,  and  famous  in  his  day  for  his 
erudition,  particularly  for  his  knowledge  of  the  old  Italian 
learning.  The  Cartesian  philosophy  was  then  enjoying 
its  full  influence,  and  the  intellectual  society  of  Naples 
was  filled  with  adherents  and  enthusiastic  followers  of  the 
'  new  science.'  By  the  Cartesian  philosophy  must  be 
understood  not  the  new  method,  but  the  new  mechanistic 
system  of  the  vortex  movements.  Vico  vigorously  opposed 
it,  but  from  an  altogether  different  standpoint  from  that 
of  Locke  and  Newton  in  England  and  Voltaire  in  France, 
and  by  very  different  arguments.  He  had  no  kind  of 
sympathy  for  these  writers  if  he  was  acquainted  with  their 

I02 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

works.  His  book,  now  held  in  honour  as  one  of  the 
classics  of  Italian  philosophy,  was  named  The  New  Science. 
The  title  was  ironical;  it  was  directed  at  the  Cartesian 
philosophy.  Your  new  science,  he  said  in  effect,  is  very 
old  stuff.  It  is  nothing  but  the  old  mechanism  revived. 
It  is  not  new,  it  is  only  the  old  arguments  and  the  old  ideas 
of  Democritus  and  Epicurus  tricked  out  in  a  modern  dress, 
and  it  is  as  dead  as  they  are.  There  is  a  new  science,  but 
that  science  is  not  mechanism,  it  is  history.  By  a  science 
of  history  Vico  revealed  in  his  work  the  consciousness 
of  a  new  principle  and  a  new  method.  For  material  he 
had  the  historical  records  sacred  and  profane,  and  he  made 
a  strange  mixture  of  them.  He  had  also  the  science  of 
language,  that  is,  philology,  and  the  various  forms  of 
aesthetic  expression.  From  this  material  he  formed  his 
science  of  the  activity  of  the  human  spirit  and  the  develop- 
ment of  its  expression.  The  work,  despite  its  flashes  of 
insight,  is  full  of  strange  notions  and  fantastic  theories 
built  on  Greek  and  Hebrew  legends  accepted  uncritically, 
but  the  idea  was  fruitful  and  pointed  a  new  direction. 
Francesco  de  Sanctis,  the  Neapolitan  patriot  and  historian 
of  Italian  literature,  acknowledged  his  indebtedness  to  it, 
and  Croce  and  Gentile  in  their  philosophy  to-day  are 
continually  referring  to  Vico  and  insisting,  almost  with 
reverence,  that  he  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  first  who  pointed 
out  the  true  subject-matter  and  method  of  modern 
philosophy.  If  we  follow  Croce  in  holding  that  the 
dominating  concept  in  contemporary  philosophy  is  a  new 
meaning  of  history,  a  meaning  which  identifies  it  with 
philosophy  as  pure  interpretation  of  present  fact,  then  we 
shall  see  plainly  that  this  concept  does  not  come  to  us  trom 
the  Greek  philosophy,  for  it  stands  in  strong  contrast  to 
the  mathematical  mechanism  which  dominated  the  Greek 

103 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

mind,  and  it  is  not,  like  the  mediaeval  concept,  a  philosophy 
of  history.  It  is  a  new  concept,  which  is  in  very  truth 
a  synthesis  of  the  Greek  and  the  mediaeval  concepts,  the 
concept  that  philosophy  is  history. 

What,  then,  is  the  concept  of  the  modern  period  which 
dominates  our  mentality  and  which  gives  us  the  bias  or 
warp,  of  which  we  may  easily  become  conscious,  to  trust 
implicitly  and  unhesitatingly  the  experimental  method  ? 
It  is  not,  like  the  mediaeval  concept,  the  idea  of  purpose 
accomplishing  itself  in  the  unfolding  of  human  history. 
Neither  is  it  the  idea  of  a  force  or  agency,  natural  or  super- 
natural, expressing  itself  in  and  through,  and  in  despite  of, 
a  recalcitrant  material.  Were  it  only  the  notion  of  some 
matter  which  has  a  history,  matter  the  nature  of  which  is 
independent  of  and  indifferent  to  its  history,  whence  would 
the  experimental  method  derive  its  cogency  ?  The  experi- 
mental method  is  rational  only  if  the  thing  we  conceive 
is  identical  with  its  history.  It  sounds  paradoxical  only 
because  we  do  not  at  once  realise  the  implications  of  our 
ordinary  reasoning  methods.  If  there  is  a  stuff  unchanged 
and  unaffected  by,  and  indifferent  to,  what  it  is  doing  when 
we  experiment  to  observe  it,  why  should  any  amount  of 
experimenting  inform  us  what  it  is  ? 

The  modern  concept  is,  then,  the  idea  of  an  activity,  real 
in  the  sense  in  which  Hfe  and  consciousness  are  real,  con- 
tinually creating  new,  unforeseeable  forms,  and  limiting  and 
circumscribing  itself  in  the  forms  it  is  creating.  This  is 
what  we  now  call  the  vitalistic  concept.  I  do  not  claim  that 
it  is  accepted  unchallenged  or  that  it  is  unchallengeable. 
I  do  claim  that  it  has  supplanted  and  is  supplanting  the  old 
mechanism  in  ever}^  domain  of  modern  life.  It  is  especially 
remarkable  in  physical  science  where  the  whole  tendency 
is  toward  dynamism.  The  essence  of  this  concept  is  that 
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TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

the  reality  of  the  world  is  exhausted  in  its  histor)' — history 
is  not  what  the  world  has  been,  but  what  it  is,  there  is  no 
core  which  abides  and  which  in  some  unexplained  and 
inexplicable  way  gives  rise  in  time  to  moving  shadows, 
images  of  itself. 

In  what  sense,  then,  can  we  say  that  we  owe  this  modern 
concept  to  the  philosophy  of  the  Middle  Ages  ?  The 
concept  itself  supplies  the  answer.  If  present  fact  is 
history,  then  the  present  mentality  of  our  Western  civilisa- 
tion is  its  continuous  life.  The  history  of  philosophy  is 
not  the  record  of  the  thoughts  which  individual  men  at 
various  times  have  had  about  the  universe;  it  is  the  unity 
of  all  thinking  in  the  universal  consciousness.  Our 
modern  concept  is  then  seen  to  arise  in  the  process,  and  as 
the  product  of  the  process,  of  the  life  of  thought  itself.  To 
discover  it  and  to  understand  it  we  have  to  penetrate  the 
forms  of  the  mentality  of  the  great  periods.  It  follows 
also  that  there  is  no  finality.  The  modern  concept  is 
not  emancipation  from  superstition  and  mythology.  It 
is  change  and  it  is  growth,  but  also  it  is  changing  and 
growing.  It  presents  to  us,  indeed,  a  definite  form,  but 
it  is  creating  new  form.  The  more  deeply  we  compre- 
hend the  dominating  concepts  of  the  Greek  and  mediaeval 
periods,  the  more  we  understand  our  own  mentality. 

H.    WiLDON    CaRR 


105 


IV 

SCIENCE 

IT  is  the  common  opinion  that  science,  in  the  usual 
modern  sense,  was  almost  entirely  absent  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  there  is  much  to  be  said  for  this  verdict.  Our 
scientific  system  is  often  regarded  as  essentially  an  out- 
growth of  classical  antiquity.  Such  a  view  contains  but  a 
partial  truth,  and  is  due  to  the  circumstance  that  for  four 
hundred  years  there  has  been  a  widespread  educational 
attempt  to  represent  our  entire  civilisation  as  the  continua- 
tion of  that  of  Greece  and  Rome. 

Not  until  the  nineteenth  century  did  anyone  begin  to 
doubt  this  estimate.  The  brothers  Grimm  were  among 
the  first  in  the  field.  They  proved  that  folk-belief  had  been 
largely  untouched  by  the  great  classical  models  on  which 
we  had  sought  to  shape  our  political  and  philosophical 
systems.  Next  the  archaeologists  demonstrated  a  whole 
series  of  civilisations  passing  in  majestic  procession  through 
the  ages,  a  series  of  which  Greece  and  Rome  were  but 
members,  and  not  even  the  most  ancient  nor  the  longest 
lasting.  Then  the  anthropologists  and  the  psychologists 
brought  their  contribution,  and  showed  how  much  men  of 
all  races  and  civilisations  had  in  common,  independent  of 
the  classical  culture.  And  now,  coming  to  the  proper 
subject  of  our  discussion,  during  the  last  generation  or  two 
there  has  arisen  a  school  of  mediaevalists  who  are  applying 
a  critical  spirit  to  the  very  copious  mediaeval  records,  and 
1 06 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

are  gradually  reconstructing  for  us  a  picture  of  the  life  of 
the  time,  so  that  we  are  coming  to  understand  better  what 
our  ancestors  of  the  Middle  Ages  really  believed  and 
thought,  and  whence  and  how  they  derived  their  beliefs 
and  thoughts.  However  we  may  define  science,  it  is  surely 
a  fact  that  in  mediaeval  times  men  had  their  beliefs  and 
thoughts  on  the  nature  of  the  external  universe,  and  had 
their  own  attitude  toward  phenomena.  This  attitude 
we  shall  describe  by  the  word  science  in  the  pages  which 
follow.  Its  consideration  is  an  integral  part  of  the  history 
of  science,  a  study  which  is  bound  to  consider  the  periods 
of  disintegration  and  deterioration  as  well  as  those  of 
reconstruction  and  advance. 

Yet  in  most  histories  of  science  the  Middle  Ages  are 
substantially  omitted  and  the  narrative  passes  almost  direct 
from  Greek  to  modern  times.  For  this  state  of  affairs 
mediaeval  scholars  are  partly  responsible.  In  the  synthesis  of 
the  life  of  the  period,  which  it  is  their  function  to  construct, 
the  detailed  examination  of  the  mediaeval  attitude  toward 
phenomena  has  had  longest  to  wait.  It  is,  indeed,  only  in 
very  recent  times  that  a  serious  attempt  has  been  made 
toward  a  comprehensive  examination  of  mediaeval  science. 
This  has  been  largely  a  task  of  the  twentieth  century  and 
is  still  very  incomplete. 

In  scrutinising  the  results  of  this  work  it  will  be  well  to 
make  a  preliminary  examination  of  the  terms  we  are  using. 
An  accurate  examination  of  these  terms  will  lead  us  some 
way  into  our  survey  of  mediaeval  science.  What  then  do 
we  mean  by  the  terms  science  and  Middle  Ages  ? 

The  word  science  is  of  course  derived  from  scientia^ 
knowledge,  a  common  term  of  scholastic  philosophy,  but 
there  are  many  kinds  of  knowledge  that  we  should  not 
now  call  science.      Most  kinds  of  knowledge,  indeed,  are 

107 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

clearly  not  science.     That  kind,  for  instance,  that  we  call 
*  knowledge  of  the  world  '  is  not  science.     May  science  be 
described  as  accurate  and  organised  knowledge  .''     I  think 
not,    or   at   least    not   adequately,   though   this    definition 
is   often   used.     There   is   much   accurate   and   organised 
knowledge  that  is  not   science.     The  election  agent,  for 
instance,  makes  out  lists  of  people  who  will  vote  this  way 
or  that,   and   his    knowledge   is    most  certainly  organised 
and  often  wonderfully  accurate,  but  he  is  not  therefore  a 
man  of  science.     The  milkman  knows  accurately  how  much 
the  law  will  allow  him  to  dilute  his  milk,  and  he  has  doubt- 
less an  organisation  to  defend  his  action,  if  needed,  but 
his  knowledge  is  not  scientific.    What  knowledge,  then,  is 
it  that  we  call  scientific  }     At  once  such  people  occur  to 
our  minds  as  the  chemist,  the  biologist,  and  the  mathe- 
matician.    But  why  should  these  be  called  men  of  science 
and  the  title  be  denied  to  the  equally  industrious  and  more 
*  knowing  *   election   agent   and   milkman  }     I   think   the 
answer  is  that  the  professor's  knowledge  is  progressive, 
that  his  science  is  knowledge-making  rather  than  knowledge 
per  se.     The  adjective  formed  from  science,  we  may  note, 
is  not  sciential  or  sciencic  as  it  should  be  on  the  simple 
etymological    rule,    but    scientific^    which    means    literally 
knowledge-makings  and  I  seriously  doubt  if  the  title  science 
should  be  applied  to  any  knowledge  as  such,  but  should 
not  rather  be  reserved  for  the  process  which  makes  knowledge. 
Science,  in  fact,  is  a  process,  a  method;  it  is  not  a  subject, 
as  a  few  schoolmasters  and  many  parents  of  school-children 
vainly  imagine.     Science,  the  method,  may  be  applied  to 
anything,  a  language,  a  school  of  art,  chemicals,  religion,  a 
group  of  plants,  a  period  of  history,  and  it  is  an  error  to  sup- 
pose that  it  has  only  to  do  with  horrible  smells,  diseases,  and 
methods  of  killing  an  enemy.    Science,  then,  is  the  process  of 
1 08 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

making  knowledge.  It  must  be  admitted  at  once  that  in 
discussing  '  mediaeval  science  *  we  shall  encounter  little  of 
the  knowledge-making  process.  It  is  rather  with  knowledge 
as  such,  or  supposed  knowledge  of  nature,  that  we  shall 
have  to  deal. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  definition  of  our  other  term,  the 
Middle  Ages.  The  delimitation  of  periods  is  a  constant 
difficulty  of  historians.  It  is  a  problem  which  all  will 
admit  cannot  be  finally  solved,  for  the  human  mind  does 
not  confine  itself  within  exact  secular  limits,  and  the 
periods  of  the  historian  are  but  a  memoria  technica  on  which 
to  build  a  more  detailed  statement  of  movements  and 
peoples.  The  Middle  Ages  would  therefore  be  differently 
defined  according  as  we  should  be  dealing  with  politics,  with 
literature,  with  art,  or  with  science.  Yet  the  historian  of 
mediaeval  *  science  '  is  perhaps  more  fortunate  than  his 
colleagues  in  that  the  principles  on  which  his  period  is 
separated  from  those  which  precede  and  those  which  follow 
it  are  relatively  clear-cut  and  simple. 

We  may  first  consider  the  terminus  a  quo  of  the  mediaeval 
attitude  toward  the  external  world,  applying  our  test  of 
science  as  the  progress  of  making  knowledge.  The  Middle 
Ages  begin  for  science  at  that  period  when  the  ancients  ceased 
to  make  knowledge.  Now,  ancient  science  can  be  clearly 
traced  as  an  active  process  up  to  the  second  half  of  the 
second  century  of  the  Christian  era.  Galen,  one  of  the 
very  greatest  and  most  creative  biologists  of  all  time, 
died  A.D.  20I.  Ptolemy,  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  cosmo- 
graphers,  was  his  contemporary.  After  Galen  and  Ptolemy 
Greek  science  flags.  Some  scientific  writings  survive  from 
the  succeeding  generations.  Several  of  these,  such  as  the 
works  of  Oribasius  (a.d.  3-5-403),  are  very  laborious. 
Others,  such  as  that  of  Nemesius  [c,  390),  show  considerable 

109 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

philosophical  grasp  with  some  conception  of  the  limits 
of  contemporary  knowledge.  Both  groups  exhibit  much 
power  of  organised  arrangement,  with  some  sense  of 
the  nature  of  experiment,  yet  with  very  little  capacity  or 
desire  themselves  to  appeal  to  experience. 

As  time  goes  on  the  ancient  scientific  inspiration 
dwindles.  Mathematics  holds  out  the  longest,  but  with  the 
mathematician  Theon  of  Alexandria,  at  the  end  of  the  fourth 
century,  we  part  altogether  with  the  impulse  of  the  science 
of  antiquity.  Stoicism  and  Neoplatonism  too,  the  chief 
systems  of  thought  of  the  late  Empire,  are  dying  and  are 
giving  place  to  that  great  philosophical  and  religious  move- 
ment the  repercussion  of  which  is  felt  right  through  the 
Middle  Ages  and  down  to  our  own  time.  The  standpoint 
of  its  great  protagonists,  Tertullian  (155-222),  Lactantius 
(260-340),  and,  above  all,  St  Jerome  (340-420)  and  St 
Augustine  (354-430),  is  outside  the  department  with 
which  we  have  here  to  deal,  but  it  was  assuredly  not  con- 
ducive to  the  exact  study  and  record  of  phenomena. 

The  work  of  the  physician  Vindician  (c.  400),  the  friend, 
countryman,  and  convert  of  St  Augustine,  represents  an 
expiring  flicker  of  Greek  science.  More  degraded  are  the 
medical  works  of  the  provincial  Christians,  Sextus  Placitus 
{c.  400)  the  Galatian,  and  Marcellus  Empiricus  (c.  420) 
the  Gaul.  The  tradition  of  Greek  scientific  method  was 
now  utterly  gone,  and  we  may  fix  the  commencement  of 
the  Middle  Ages  for  science  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  or  the 
beginning  of  the  fifth  century. 

The  terminus  ad  quern  of  mediaeval  science  is,  perhaps, 
less  easy  to  determine.  Mediasvalisation,  in  our  view,  was 
a  slow  process  under  the  action  of  which  the  human  mind, 
without  consciously  increasing  the  stock  of  phenomenal 
knowledge,  sank  slowly  into  an  increasing  ineptitude,  but 
no 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

at  a  certain  point  reached  the  nadir  and  tended  again 
upward.  The  point  of  lowest  degradation  of  the  human 
intellect  was  probably  about  the  tenth  century.  After 
this  may  be  discerned  a  slow  ascent.  Later,  in  the  thir- 
teenth and  fourteenth  centuries,  we  encounter  considerable 
extension  of  natural  knowledge.  There  is  still,  however, 
no  widespread  acceptance  of  the  ancient  view  that  know- 
ledge may  be  indefinitely  extendible,  an  essential  element  in 
any  effective  doctrine  of  progress.  In  this  scholastic  period 
at  last  appear  a  very  few  such  forward-looking  minds  as 
that  of  Bacon  (12 14-1294),  but  these  are  as  yet  very  rare 
and  exceptional.  When  at  last  we  get  to  the  fifteenth 
century  we  encounter  a  larger  number  of  forward-looking 
thinkers,  but  they  are  still  isolated.  Not  until  the  sixteenth 
century  is  any  effort  made,  at  once  organised  and  conscious, 
to  translate  into  action  this  new-born  hope  in  the  future. 

If  we  have  to  name  a  year  for  the  end-point  of  mediaeval 
science  we  would  select  1543,  when  appeared  two  funda- 
mental modern  works  based  on  the  experimental  method, 
the  De  jahrica  corporis  humani  of  the  Belgian  Andreas 
Vesalius  and  the  De  revolutiontbus  erbium  coelestium  of  the  Pole 
Nicholas  Copernicus.  It  is  true  that  for  many  generations 
after  the  time  of  Vesalius  and  Copernicus  the  characteristic 
doctrines  of  the  science  of  the  Middle  Ages  were  almost 
universally  taught  in  the  schools  and  diffused  by  litera- 
ture, and  are,  for  instance,  displayed  in  the  writings  of 
Shakespeare.  But  the  ideas  on  which  the  works  of  Vesalius 
and  Copernicus  had  been  based  gain,  from  now  on,  an  ever 
wider  hearing.  It  is  also  true  that  for  generations  before 
1543  there  was  a  dawning  consciousness  of  the  inadequacy 
of  the  mediaeval  cosmic  system.  But  that  year  saw  for 
the  first  time  two  published  and  authoritative  works  that 
formally  rejected  the  old  view  and  supplied  a  new  one. 

1 1 1 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

For  science,  then,  1543  is  the  natural  terminus  ad  quern  of 
the  Middle  Ages. 

Now,  since  the  human  mind  turned  on  its  upward  course 
about  the  tenth  century,  and  since  the  process  was  accel- 
erated during  the  great  scholastic  period  of  the  thirteenth 
century  and  again  at  the  Revival  of  Learning  of  the  four- 
teenth and  fifteenth  centuries,  it  may  be  asked,  why  should 
we  not  choose  one  or  other  of  these  dates  as  the  end-point 
of  the  scientific  Middle  Ages  ?  The  thirteenth  century, 
the  great  epoch  of  consolidation  of  Catholic  philosophy, 
has  been  selected  as  one  of  exceptional  enlightenment,  and 
has  been  specially  exalted  by  those  who  lay  great  emphasis 
on  the  continuing  role  of  the  Church  in  the  development 
of  the  intellectual  system  of  our  modern  world.  There 
are,  therefore,  some  who  would  place  the  division  in  the 
thirteenth  rather  than  the  sixteenth  century.  There  are 
yet  others,  biased  perhaps  by  the  literary  training  of  the 
classics,  who  would  place  the  cleavage  a  little  later,  say 
in  the  second  half  of  the  fourteenth  and  the  first  half  of 
the  fifteenth  century.  They  would  make  the  Revival  of 
Learning,  and  especially  of  Greek  letters,  the  basis  of  the 
differentiation  between  mediaeval  and  modern.  For  them 
the  fall  of  Constantinople  at  the  hands  of  the  Turks  in 
1453  forms  a  convenient  separation. 

Yet  to  make  the  great  division  in  the  tenth,  in  the 
thirteenth,  or  in  the  fifteenth  century  would  be,  to  my  mind, 
a  philosophical  and  historical  error,  because,  with  very  few 
exceptions,  the  point  of  view  of  the  eleventh-century  ency- 
clopaedist, of  the  thirteenth-century  scholastic,  and  of  the 
fifteenth-century  scholar  was  formally  and  essentially  an 
effort  to  return  to  the  past.  It  was  the  literature  and  language 
of  antiquity,  the  antiquity  of  the  Fathers,  of  the  philosophers, 
or  of  the  poets,  that  these  men  sought  more  or  less  vainly 
112 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

to  revive.  Both  the  clerical  and  the  classical  education  of 
our  day  still  bear  the  trace  of  these  backward-gazing  stand- 
points. It  would  surely  be  unjust  to  deny  that  there  are 
elements  both  in  our  clerical  and  in  our  classical  education 
that  do  not  partake  of  this  character  ;  but  much  of  the  form 
in  which  such  studies  have  been  cast  is  due  to  a  desire  to 
imitate  rather  than  to  build.  The  great  Catholic  scholastics 
believed  that  they  were  mainly  reconstructing  the  philosophy 
of  Aristotle ;  whether  they  were  right  or  wrong  is  beside 
the  point  for  our  purpose.  Imitation  rather  than  origina- 
tion was  the  characteristic  mental  attitude  also  of  the  most 
enthusiastic  scholars  during  the  period  that  we  call  the 
Revival  of  Learning.  Even  the  process  by  which  they 
recovered  the  ancient  texts,  though  it  may  rightly  be 
regarded  as  containing  scientific  elements,  had  for  its 
motive  the  imitation  of  the  past  by  the  present,  rather  than 
the  modern  archaeological  aim  of  the  mental  reconstruction 
of  the  past  with  the  object  of  understanding  the  present. 
What  is  true  of  the  literary  studies  of  the  Renaissance  is  just 
as  true  of  the  scientific  studies  of  the  period.  The  recovery 
of  the  Greek  texts,  even  if  it  enlarged  the  mental  horizon, 
chained  men's  minds  more  closely  than  ever  to  the  past. 

There  is  a  point,  however,  at  which  the  gaze  of  those 
interested  in  phenomena,  of  the  physicists,  and  especially 
of  the  physicians,  is  at  last  turned  away  from  the  past  and 
toward  the  future.  What  the  philosophical  basis  of  this 
change  may  be  can  hardly  be  discussed  here.  I  would 
but  briefly  state  my  own  belief  that  the  essential  bases  are 
the  hope  in  mankind,  and  its  corollary  the  idea  of  progress, 
with  which  is  bound  up  the  idea  of  the  indefinite  extendi- 
bility  of  knowledge  ;  and  I  would  further  claim  that  this 
idea  is  not  unconnected  with  the  disturbance  in  the  religious 
outlook  of  the  period.     We  may  at  least  say  of  the  two  great 

H  113 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

works  that  appeared  in  1 543  that  they  present  a  new  thing 
in  the  thought  of  the  time,  they  are  consciously  creative, 
and  their  authors  are  aware  of  a  break  with  the  past  and  are 
looking  to  the  future  for  the  development  and  vindication  of 
their  views.  The  work  of  Copernicus,  though  it  appeared 
in  1 543,  had  been  prepared  many  years  before.  It  is  there- 
fore much  the  more  conservative  of  the  two.  But  when  the 
proof-sheets  were  brought  to  the  old  man  as  he  lay  on  his 
death-bed,  he  must,  I  think,  have  been  sufficiently  aware  that 
times  had  changed  since  he  first  penned  those  pages.  He 
must  have  felt  that  his  outlook  in  his  seventieth  year  had 
greatly  changed  from  that  of  the  class-rooms  of  Bologna 
and  Padua  where,  as  a  young  man,  he  discussed  with  a 
group  of  brilliant  fellow-students  the  problems  of  heaven 
and  earth.  Very  different  is  the  history  of  the  second  of 
these  two  great  early  works  of  modern  science.  Vesalius 
when  he  produced  his  magnificently  printed  and  illustrated 
Anatomy  was  a  vigorous  young  man  of  twenty-eight.  He 
was  in  full  revolt  against  tradition,  and  he  saw  the  situation 
clearly  and  saw  it  whole.  He  parts  definitely  with  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  has  no  use  for  ancient  knowledge  save  when  he 
can  demonstrate  it  to  be  in  accord  with  anatomical  details 
as  he  sees  them  before  him.     He  is  every  inch  a  modern. 

Thus  for  effective  purposes  we  may  place  the  limits  of 
mediaeval  science  between  the  years  400  and  1543.  This 
vast  stretch  of  time  is  divided  by  an  event  of  the  highest 
importance  for  the  history  of  the  human  intellect.  Between 
the  beginning  of  the  tenth  and  the  end  of  the  twelfth 
century  there  was  a  remarkable  outburst  of  intellectual 
activity  in  Western  Islam.  This  movement  reacted  with 
great  effect  on  Latin  Europe,  and  especially  on  its  scientific 
views,  by  means  of  works  translated  from  Arabic  which 
gradually  reached  Christendom.  In  the  light  of  this  great 
114 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

intellectual  event  we  may  divide  our  scientific  Middle  Ages 
into  three  parts,  an  earlier  Dark  Age,  an  intermediate  Age 
of  Arabic  Infiltration  and  Translation,  and  a  later  Scholastic 
Age.  During  these  three  periods  the  general  principles  of 
science  hardly  change,  but  the  difference  in  presentment  of 
the  material  is  such  that  the  student  of  mediaeval  science  is 
seldom  in  doubt  into  which  category  to  place  any  document 
that  may  come  into  his  hands. 

The  task  of  the  first  mediaeval  period  was  the  conveyance 
of  the  remains  of  the  ancient  wisdom  to  later  ages.  During 
the  closing  centuries  of  the  classical  decline  the  literature 
that  was  to  be  conveyed  had  been  delimited  and  translated 
into  the  only  language  common  to  the  learned  West.  We 
may  briefly  discuss  this  classical  heritage. 

The  work  of  Plato  that  is  least  attractive  and  most  obscure 
to  the  modern  mind  fitted  in  well  with  the  prevalent  views  of 
the  Neoplatonists.  The  commentary  on  the  Tim^eus  prepared 
by  Chalcidius  in  the  third  century  from  a  translation  of 
Apuleius  in  the  second  presents  the  basis  of  views  held 
throughout  the  entire  Middle  Ages  on  the  nature  of  the 
universe  and  of  man.  Thus  the  Tim^eus  became  one  of  the 
most  influential  of  all  the  works  of  antiquity,  and  especially 
it  carried  the  central  dogma  of  mediaeval  science,  the 
doctrine  of  the  macrocosm  and  microcosm. 

Of  Aristotle  there  survived  only  the  Categories  and  the  De 
interpretatione^  translated  in  the  sixth  century  by  Boethius 
(480-524).  A  Greek  introduction  to  the  Categories  had 
been  prepared  by  Porphyry  in  the  second  centur)',  and  this 
also  was  rendered  into  Latin  by  Boethius.  Thus  the  only 
Aristotelian  writings  known  to  the  Dark  Age  of  science 
were  the  logical  works,  and  these  determined  the  main 
extra-theological  interest  for  many  centuries.  It  is  a  world- 
misfortune  that  Boethius  did  not  see  his  way  to  prepare 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

versions  of  those  works  of  the  Peripatetic  school  that 
displayed  powers  of  observation.  Had  a  translation  of 
Aristotle's  Historia  animalium  or  De  generatione  animalium 
survived,  or  had  a  Latin  version  of  the  works  of  Theo- 
phrastus  on  plants  reached  the  earlier  Middle  Ages,  the 
whole  mental  history  of  the  race  might  have  been  different. 
Boethius  repaired  the  omission,  to  some  small  extent,  by 
handing  on  certain  mathematical  treatises  of  his  own 
compilation,  the  De  institiitione  arithmetical  the  De  insti- 
tutione  musica,  and  the  (doubtful)  Geometrica.  These 
works  preserved  throughout  the  darkest  centuries  some 
fragment  of  mathematical  knowledge.  Thanks  to  them 
we  can  at  least  say  that  during  the  long  degradation  of  the 
human  intellect,  mathematics,  the  science  last  to  sink  with 
the  fall  of  the  Greek  intellect,  was  not  dragged  down  quite 
so  low  as  the  other  departments  of  knowledge.  The  main 
gift  of  Boethius  to  the  world,  his  De  consolatione  philosophise, 
which  preserved  some  classical  taste  and  feeling,  lies  out- 
side our  field. 

A  somewhat  similar  service  to  that  of  Boethius  was 
rendered  by  his  approximate  contemporaries,  Martianus 
Capella  (c.  500)  and  Macrobius  (395-423).  The  former, 
in  his  Satyricon,  a  work  of  far  less  literary  value  than  the 
masterpiece  of  Boethius,  provided  the  Dark  Age  with  a  com- 
plete encyclopaedia.  The  work  is  divided  into  nine  books. 
The  first  two  contain  an  allegory,  in  heavy  and  clumsy  style, 
of  the  marriage  of  the  god  Mercury  to  the  nymph  Philology. 
Of  the  last  seven  books  of  the  work,  each  contains  an 
account  of  one  of  the  '  Liberal  Arts,'  grammar,  dialectic, 
rhetoric,  geometry,  arithmetic,  astronomy,  and  music,  a 
classification  of  studies  that  was  retained  throughout  the 
Middle  Ages.  The  section  on  astronomy  has  a  passage 
containing  a  heliocentric  view  of  the  universe  that  had 
116 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

been  familiar  to  certain  earlier  Greek  astronomers.  The 
passage  gave  rise  to  no  comment  in  the  Middle  Ages,  but 
it  may  have  drawn  the  attention  of  Copernicus,  who  quotes 
Capella.  In  other  respects  the  cosmology  of  Capella,  like 
that  of  Chalcidius,  is  Neoplatonic,  as  is  also  that  of  Macro 
bius,  whose  commentary  on  the  Somnium  Scipionis  of 
Cicero  gave  rise  to  some  of  the  most  prevalent  cosmological 
conceptions  of  the  first  mediaeval  period. 

In    addition    to    the    cosmography,    mathematics,    and 
astronomy  that  could  be  gleaned  from  such  writings  as 
these,  the  Dark  Age  inherited  a  group  of  scientific  and 
medical  works  from  the  period  of  classical  decline.     The 
most  important  was  the  Natural  History  of  Pliny,   which 
deeply  influenced  the  early  encyclopaedists.     Very  curious 
and    characteristic    is    a    group    of    later    pseudepigrapha 
bearing    the    names    of    Dioscorides,    Hippocrates,    and 
Apuleius,   the   history   of  which   has   not  yet   been   fully 
investigated.     They  were  probably  all  prepared  between 
the  fourth  and  sixth  centuries.     Manuscripts  of  the  pseudo- 
Apuleian  treatise  On  the  Virtues  of  Herbs  are  often  beautifully 
illustrated  by  miniatures,  and  examples  from  every  century 
from  the  sixth  to  the  sixteenth  have  come  down  to  us, 
showing   the   most   extraordinary   constancy   of  tradition. 
The  Dark  Age  inherited  also   certain  medical   works  in 
translation   from   Greek.     These  were    prepared    between 
the  fifth  and    eighth  centuries,  and  included  treatises   of 
Hippocrates,    Dioscorides,    Galen,    Oribasius,    Alexander 
of  Tralles,  and  Paul  of  i^gina.     A  very  curious  medical 
survival  of  this  period  is  a  work  on  embryology  for  the 
use   of  women,  translated  by  the  sixth-century  Moschion 
from  a  work  of  the  second-century  Soranus. 

This   material,    then,    was    the   basis   of  the   medicEval 
scientific  heritage.     Traces  of  much  of  it  are  encountered 

117 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

in  De  institutionibus  divinarum  et  humanarum  literarum  of 
Cassiodorus  (490-585),  perhaps  the  earHest  general  writer 
whose  works  bear  the  authentic  mediaeval  stamp.  The 
scientific  heritage,  however,  is  much  more  fully  displayed 
in  the  Origines  of  Isidore  of  Seville,  a  late  sixth-century 
work  which  formed  a  cyclopaedia  of  all  the  sciences  in  the 
form  of  an  explanation  of  the  terms  proper  to  each.  For 
many  centuries  Isidore  was  very  widely  read,  and  the  series, 
Isidore  (560-636),  Bede  (673-735),  Alcuin  (735-804), 
Raban  (7 8  6-856),  who  borrow  from  one  another  successively, 
and  all  from  Pliny,  may  be  said  to  contain  the  science  of  the 
Dark  Age.  The  work  of  these  writers  is  summarised  by  the 
early  eleventh-century  English  writer  Byrhtferth  {d.c.  1020), 
whose  copious  commentary  on  Bede's  scientific  work  may 
be  regarded  as  the  final  product  of  Dark  Age  science. 

The  only  Dark  Age  writer  who  deals  with  cosmological 
problems  in  an  original  way  is  Erigena  {c.  %qo-c.  877). 
But  his  remarkable  genius  hardly  concerned  itself  with 
phenomena,  and  so  we  may  pass  him  by,  relegating  him  to 
the  philosophers.  With  the  somewhat  belated  Byrhtferth 
we  part  company  with  the  Dark  Age  and  enter  upon  a  new 
period,  with  new  forces  and  new  movements  at  work. 

The  tenth  century  and  those  that  follow  bring  us  into 
relation  with  the  wisdom  of  the  East.  In  these  centuries 
the  relation  of  East  and  West  with  which  we  are  now- 
adays familiar  is  reversed.  In  our  time  most  Oriental 
races  recognise  the  value  of  Western  culture,  and  give  it 
the  sincerest  form  of  flattery.  The  Oriental  recognises 
that  with  the  Occident  are  science  and  learning,  power  and 
organisation  and  public  spirit.  But  the  admitted  supe- 
riority of  the  West  does  not  extend  to  the  sphere  of  religion. 
The  Oriental  who  gladly  accepts  the  Occidental  as  his 
judge,  his  physician,  or  his  teacher  wholly  repudiates,  and 
118 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

perhaps  despises,  his  rehgion.  In  the  Europe  of  the  tenth, 
eleventh,  and  twelfth  centuries  it  was  far  otherwise.  The 
Westerner  knew  well  that  Islam  held  the  learning  and 
science  of  antiquity.  His  proficiency  in  arms  and  adminis- 
tration had  been  sufficiently  well  proved — the  Occidental 
belief  in  them  is  enshrined  in  our  Semitic  word  '  admiral,' 
There  was  a  longing,  too,  for  the  intellectual  treasures  of  the 
East,  but  the  same  fear  and  repugnance  to  its  religion  that 
the  East  now  feels  for  Western  religion.  And  the  W^estern 
experienced  obstacles  in  obtaining  the  desired  Oriental 
learning  analogous  to  those  now  encountered  by  the 
Eastern  in  the  Occident. 

The  earliest  definitely  Oriental  influence  that  we  can 
discern  in  the  department  of  science  is  of  the  nature  of 
infiltration  rather  than  direct  translation,  and  the  earliest 
agents  of  this  process,  for  reasons  which  we  shall  presently 
discuss,  appear  to  have  been  Jews  who  had  been  under  Sara- 
cen rule.  Such  influence  can  first  be  traced  in  two  works  in 
the  Hebrew  language  by  Sabbatai  ben  Abraham  (9 1 3-970), 
better  known  as  Donnolo,  a  Jew  of  Otranto  who  practised 
medicine  at  Rossano  in  Southern  Italy.  One  of  his  works 
is  an  '  antidotarium,'  or  book  of  remedies,  and  bears  slight 
but  definite  evidence  of  Arabic  influence.  His  other  can 
be  dated  to  the  year  946,  and  is  on  astrology.  It  un- 
questionably draws  on  Arabic  sources,  and  sets  forth  fully 
the  doctrine  of  the  macrocosm  and  microcosm.  Donnolo 
learnt  Arabic  while  a  prisoner  in  Saracen  hands;  he  was 
taught  the  language  by  a  Bagdadi,  and,  like  Constantine 
in  the  next  century,  he  claimed  to  have  studied  "  the 
sciences  of  the  Greeks,  Arabs,  Babylonians,  and  Indians." 
He  travelled  in  the  Italian  peninsula  in  search  of  learning 
and  thus  must  have  spread  some  of  his  Arabic  science. 

The  first  Latin  document  betraying  Oriental  influence 

119 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

of  the  type  traced  in  Donnolo  has  only  been  discovered 
during  the  last  few  years.  It  is  a  treatise  on  astrology 
to  which  the  name  *  Alcandrius  '  (Alexander)  is  attached. 
This  work  has  come  down  to  us  in  but  a  single  manuscript 
written  about  950  or  a  little  later,  probably  in  Southern 
France.  The  repeated  use  of  Hebrew  equivalents  for  the 
names  of  constellations  and  planets,  and  the  occasional  use 
of  Hebrew  script,  leave  no  doubt  that  it  has  passed  through 
Jewish  hands. 

The  existence  of  these  works  of  Donnolo  and  '  Alcan- 
drius '  enables  us  to  understand  the  Saracenic  influence 
detected  in  the  mathematical  writings  of  the  learned  Pope 
Silvester  II  (Gerbert,  d.  1003),  who  spent  some  years  in 
Northern  Spain.  Gerbert  was,  perhaps,  among  the  earliest 
to  introduce  the  Arabic  system  of  numbering  which  slowly 
replaced  the  much  clumsier  Roman  system,  with  its  tiresome 
use  of  the  abacus  for  simple  mathematical  processes.  He 
is  also  believed  to  have  instigated  a  translation  from  the 
Arabic  of  a  work  on  the  astrolabe. 

Hermann  the  Cripple  (loi 3-1054)  spent  his  life  at  the 
Benedictine  abbey  of  Reichenau  in  Switzerland.  He 
wrote  certain  mathematical  and  astrological  works  which 
were  extensively  used  in  the  following  century  by  Bernard 
Sylvestris.  There  is  no  evidence  that  Hermann  could 
read  Arabic,  and,  since  he  was  unable  to  travel  by  reason 
of  his  infirmity,  it  is  unlikely  that  he  had  any  opportunity 
of  learning  that  language.  Yet  his  writings  display  much 
Arabic  influence,  which  was  almost  certainly  conveyed 
to  him  by  wandering  scholars  of  the  type  of  Donnolo 
and  *  Alcandrius.'  Similar  evidence  of  the  somewhat 
belated  influence  of  what  we  have  called  the  process  of 
Arabic  infiltration  is  exhibited  in  the  lapidary  of  Marbod 
of  Anjou,  Bishop  of  Rennes  (i 035-1 123),  and  in  the  work 
120 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

on  the  medicinal  use  of  herbs  by  Odo  of  Meune,  Abbot  of 
Beauprai  (Macer  Floridus,  d.  1161). 

The  Arabic  learning  that  was  thus  beginning  to  trickle 
through  to  the  West  in  a  much  corrupted  form  was,  however, 
by  no  means  an  entirely  native  Saracen  product ;  it  was 
derived  ultimately  from  Greek  work.  There  was,  indeed, 
yet  one  channel  by  which  the  original  Greek  wisdom  might 
still  reach  Europe.  Communication  between  the  West  and 
the  Byzantine  East  was  very  little  in  evidence  in  the  centuries 
with  which  we  are  now  concerned,  but  a  Greek  tradition  still 
lingered  in  certain  Southern  Italian  centres,  and  especially 
in  Sicily.  That  island  had  been  a  part  of  Magna  Graecia, 
and  its  dialects  bear  traces,  to  this  very  day,  of  the  Greek 
spoken  there  and  in  Calabria  and  Apulia  until  late  mediaeval 
times.  But  the  Saracens  had  begun  their  attacks  on  the 
island  as  early  as  the  seventh  century,  and  their  rule  did 
not  cease  until  the  Norman  conquest  of  the  eleventh  century. 
The  Semitic  language  of  the  Saracens  left  the  same  impres- 
sion on  the  island  as  did  their  art  and  architecture,  so  that 
between  the  tenth  and  twelfth  centuries  Sicily  is  a  source 
of  both  Greek  and  Arabic  learning  for  Western  Europe. 

One  seat  of  learning  felt  especially  early  the  influence  of 
the  Grasco-Arabic  culture  of  Sicily  and  Southern  Italy. 
Salerno,  on  the  Gulf  of  Naples,  possessed  something  in  the 
nature  of  a  medical  school  at  least  as  far  back  as  the  ninth 
century.  It  is  clear  from  surviving  manuscripts  that,  even 
apart  from  the  Greek  language,  some  traces  of  ancient 
Greek  medicine  lingered  widely  diffused  in  Magna  Graecia 
during  the  centuries  that  succeeded  the  downfall  of  the 
Western  Empire.  Such  Greek  learning  as  remained  was 
galvanised  into  life  by  Saracenic  energy  in  Sicily  and 
Southern  Italy,  and,  with  what  we  now  know  of  the  carr)-ing 
agents  of  Arabic  culture,  it  is  quite  easy  to  understand  the 

121 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

popular  tradition  that  attributes  the  founding  of  the  great 
medical  school  of  Salerno  to  the  co-operation  of  a  Greek, 
an  Arab,  a  Latin,  and  a  Jew.  The  very  earliest  Salernitan 
writings  that  have  survived,  such  as  that  of  Gariopontus 
(c,  1050),  are,  it  is  true,  free  of  Arabic  influence,  but  from 
the  end  of  the  eleventh  century  Salernitan  material  is  full 
of  Semitic  words,  some  of  which  remain  in  medical  nomen- 
clature to  this  day. 

A  very  important  agent  of  this  early  Arabic  revival  was 
Constantine  the  African  (d.  1087),  a  native  of  Carthage, 
who  came  to  Italy  about  the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century. 
He  became  a  monk  at  Montecassino,  and  spent  the  rest 
of  his  life  turning  current  Arabic  medical  and  scientific 
works  into  Latin.  In  his  desire  for  self-exaltation  he 
often  conceals  his  sources,  or  gives  them  inaccurately. 
His  knowledge  of  both  the  languages  which  he  was 
treating  was  far  from  thorough,  and  his  translations  are 
wretched.  But  these  versions  were  very  influential,  and 
they  remained  current  in  the  West  long  after  they  had  been 
replaced  by  the  better  workmanship  of  such  Toledo  students 
as  Gerard  of  Cremona  in  the  twelfth  century  and  Gerard  of 
Sabbioneta  in  the  thirteenth. 

The  earliest  Oriental  influences  that  reached  the  West 
had  thus  been  brought  by  foreign  agents  or  carriers,  such 
as  Constantine  or  Donnolo.  But  the  desire  for  know- 
ledge could  not  be  satisfied  thus.  The  movement  that  was 
soon  to  give  rise  to  the  universities  was  shaping  itself, 
and  the  Western  student  was  beginning  to  become  more 
curious  and  more  desirous  of  going  to  the  well-springs  of 
Eastern  wisdom.      Yet  there  was  many  a  lion  in  the  path. 

The  main  difficulty  was  one  of  language.  Arabic  was 
the  language  of  Eastern  science  and  letters,  and  its  idiom 
was  utterly  difi^crcnt  from  the  speech  of  the  peoples  of 
122 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

Europe.  Moreover,  its  grammar  had  not  yet  been  re- 
duced to  rule  in  any  Latin  work,  nor  could  teachers  be 
easily  procured.  Even  in  the  thirteenth  century  we  find 
that  Bacon,  though  he  clearly  perceived  the  importance  of 
linguistic  study  and  eagerly  sought  to  unlock  the  litera- 
ture of  foreign  tongues,  had  still  not  found  the  key.  He 
had  only  time  to  commence  laboriously  the  grammatical 
apparatus  of  the  Greek  and  Hebrew  languages.  He  was 
still  without  an  Arabic  grammar.  The  only  way  to  learn 
Arabic  was  to  go  to  an  Arabic-speaking  country.  Yet 
this  was  a  dangerous  and  difficult  adventure  involving 
hardship,  secrecy,  and  perhaps  abjuration  of  faith.  More- 
over, to  learn  the  language  at  all  adequately  for  rendering 
scientific  treatises  into  Latin  meant  a  stay  of  years,  while 
the  work  of  translation  demanded  also  some  understanding 
of  the  subject-matter  to  be  translated.  There  is  good 
evidence  that  an  effective  knowledge  of  this  kind  was  very 
rarely  attained  by  Westerns,  and  probably  never  until  the 
later  twelfth  century. 

At  the  period  during  which  Western  science  begins  to 
draw  from  Moslem  sources  there  were  only  two  points  of 
contact :  these  were  respectively  Spain  and   Sicily.     The 
conditions   in    the   two    were   somewhat   similar.      In    the 
tenth  century  the  Iberian  peninsula  was  Moslem  save  for 
the  small  kingdoms  of  the  Spanish  march,  Leon,  Navarre, 
and  Aragon.     Here  the  grip  of  Islam   had  relaxed  after 
a  short  hold,  and  this  territory  remained  historically,  re- 
ligiously, racially,  and  linguistically  a  part  of  the  Latin  West. 
The  Moslem  South  was  ruled  from  Cordova,  which  became 
increasingly  Mohammedanised,  but  at  the  more  northern 
Toledo  the  subject  population,  though  speaking  an  Arabic 
patois^  remained  largely  Christian.     It  was  at  Toledo  that 
most  of  the  work  of  transmission  took  place. 

123 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

It  is  probable  that  the  process  was  frequently  carried 
on  by  the  intervention  of  Jewish  students.  The  tenth, 
eleventh,  and  twelfth  centuries,  a  time  of  low  degradation 
of  the  Latin  intellect,  was  the  best  period  of  Jewish  learning 
in  Spain.  Arabic  was  the  natural  linguistic  medium  of  these 
learned  Jews,  the  works  of  some  of  whom,  as  Ibn  Gebirol, 
disguised  in  Latin  works  as  Avicebron,  and  Maimonides, 
known  to  the  scholastics  as  Rabbi  Moses,  were  themselves 
rendered  into  Latin,  and  formed  part  of  the  Eastern  heritage 
won  by  the  translators  during  these  centuries. 

We  can  fairly  picture  to  ourselves  the  very  details  of 
the  actual  process,  piecing  our  scene  together  from  a 
variety  of  documents.  An  eccentric  and  restless  European 
student,  dissatisfied  with  the  teaching  of  Paris,  of  Bologna, 
or  of  Oxford,  and  attracted  by  floating  stories  of  the  wonders 
of  Arabic  learning,  arrives  at  Toledo  or  Cordova.  He  has 
crossed  the  frontier  from  the  Spanish  march,  having  evaded 
or  bribed  the  sentries.  Perhaps  he  carries  letters  from  a 
patron  in  his  native  land  to  an  official  of  the  native  church. 
These  native  dignitaries  bear  something  of  the  same  relation 
to  the  governing  powers  that  the  Christian  rayahs  in  the  late 
Turkish  empire  bore  to  the  ruling  powers.  All  are  in  a  state 
of  nervous  subjection,  leagued  together  by  common  instinct 
and  common  interest.  Even  after  the  Moslem  retreat, 
generations  must  pass  before  such  men  can  free  themselves 
from  the  servile  inheritance  of  ignorance.  Our  student 
makes  his  way  to  the  church  or  monastery  and  establishes  his 
credentials.  His  host  can  converse  with  him  in  Latin,  but 
only  with  difficulty,  for  their  pronunciations  differ  greatly. 

The  student  has  now  to  be  housed  with  a  monastery  or 
family,  that  he  may  learn  the  vernacular  of  the  place. 
The  language  that  was  to  develop  as  Castilian  is  hardly  yet 
known,  for  the  native  Christians  have  adopted  the  speech 
124 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

of  their  conquerors.  The  vernacular  of  these  Mozarabs 
is  a  non-Hterary  patois  of  mixed  Arabic  and  Latin  origin. 
To  acquire  facility  in  this  is  essential  before  the  task  of  trans- 
lation can  be  thought  of.  Later,  in  the  twelfth  century, 
when  the  tide  had  turned  and  Islam  was  in  retreat,  it  was 
occasionally  possible  for  a  scholar  with  a  gift  for  languages, 
such  as  Gerard  of  Cremona  (i  1 14-1 187),  to  find  a  skilled 
native  Christian  teacher  such  as  Ibn  Ghalib.  But  in  the 
tenth  or  eleventh  century  Christian  learning  and  Christian 
society  in  Spain  were  subject  and  depressed.  Like  many 
modern  peoples  similarly  placed,  these  native  Christians 
were  attached  with  the  more  fanaticism  to  the  religion  which 
held  them  together,  and  to  the  language  of  their  Church. 
The  student  of  an  earlier  time  could  find  no  effective 
Christian  teacher  of  literary  Arabic,  while  the  very  sciences 
which  he  sought  to  acquire  were  suspect  as  the  mark  of 
the  infidel  and  the  oppressor. 

The  Jews  of  Spain  of  that  age,  however,  though  equally 
subject  to  the  Moslem,  had  entered  with  greater  spirit 
into  the  scientific  heritage  of  Islam.  While  quite  ignorant 
of  Latin,  with  which  they  had  not  the  same  spiritual  link 
as  their  Christian  fellow-subjects,  many  of  them  spoke 
and  wrote  the  language  of  science,  the  literary  language 
of  the  Koran.  Our  student,  now  with  some  command  of 
the  vernacular,  makes  the  acquaintance  of  a  Jew  of  this 
type,  and  arranges  a  series  of  meetings  with  him  and  with 
a  native  clerk  who  has  some  knowledge  of  Latin.  The 
work  selected  for  translation  might  be  in  Arabic  or  Hebrew, 
for  many  of  the  most  important  Arabic  works  of  science 
had  been  turned  into  the  latter  language.  In  either  event 
it  is  improbable  that  the  Christian  members  of  the  seance 
could  read  the  Semitic  script,  or  that  the  Jew  could  read 
the    Latin.      The    Jew    would    then    laboriously    turn    the 

125 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

Hebrew  or  Arabic  text,  sentence  by  sentence,  into  the 
vernacular,  and  the  student,  aided  by  his  native  assis- 
tant, would  then  translate  from  the  vernacular  to  Latin. 
Naturally,  in  this  process  many  words  would  be  met  that 
could  not  be  rendered  either  into  the  vernacular  or  into 
the  barbarous  Latin  of  the  student  who  had  now  long  been 
away  from  any  centre  of  Latin  learning.  Especial  diffi- 
culty would  be  encountered  with  the  technical  scientific 
terms.  The  meaning  of  some  of  these  might  well  be 
imperfectly  known  to  the  Jewish  translator  himself.  Such 
words  would  simply  be  carried  over  in  a  transliterated 
Arabic  or  Hebrew  form  into  the  translation,  and  the 
early  versions  are  full  of  these  Semitic  expressions.  The 
mediaeval  astronomical  and  medical  vocabularies  abound 
in  Semitic  words,  some  of  which,  such  as  'azure,'  'zero,' 
*  zenith,'  and  *  nucha,'  have  come  down  to  the  speech  of  our 
own  time.  The  sort  of  translation  which  emerged  from 
this  process  may  be  imagined.  When  it  is  also  remembered 
that  to  reach  the  Arabic  from  the  original  Greek  it  had 
already  passed  through  similar  stages,  probably  with  Syriac  as 
an  intermediary,  it  will  be  understood  that  the  first  scientific 
books  that  reached  the  West  were  a  wretched  travesty  of  the 
Greek  originals  from  which  they  were  ultimately  derived. 

Men  who  may  be  supposed  to  have  worked  in  such  a 
way  as  we  have  pictured  are  Adelard  of  Bath  (c.  1 1  oo), 
who  visited  both  Spain  and  Sicily,  and  who  published 
a  compendium  of  Arabic  science — and  his  pupil  John 
O'Crea,  who  translated  Euclid's  Elements  from  the  Arabic. 
To  the  same  group  belongs  Michael  Scot  (i  175  .''-1234  ?), 
who  produced  versions  or  abridgements  of  the  biological 
works  of  Aristotle.  More  scientific  in  their  methods 
were  Robert  of  Chester  {c.  1 1 50),  who  rendered  the  Koran 
into  Latin  and  translated  works  on  alchemy  and  astronomy 
126 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

and  the  valuable  algebra  of  Al  Khowarizmi,  and  Alfred  the 
Englishman  {c.  1220),  who  rendered  the  Peripatetic  work 
On  Plants,  and  thus  preserved  for  us  a  fragment  of  a 
work  of  the  Aristotelian  school  that  would  otherwise  be 
lost.  But  the  greatest  of  all  the  translators  was  Gerard  of 
Cremona  (1114-1187),  who  spent  many  years  at  Toledo 
and  obtained  a  thorough  knowledge  of  Arabic  from  a 
native  Christian  teacher.  He  and  his  successor  Gerard  of 
Sabbioneta  (c.  1230)  translated  into  Latin  a  multitude  of 
works,  among  them  the  Almagest  of  Ptolemy  on  which 
Regiomontanus  began  his  work  in  the  fifteenth  century, 
and  the  Canon  of  Avicenna,  the  most  widely  read  medical 
treatise  that  has  ever  been  penned.  Contemporary  with 
Gerard  of  Cremona,  and  perhaps  stimulated  by  him,  were 
certain  native  translators,  one  of  whom  was  Domenico 
Gonzalez,  a  Christian  who  rendered  into  Latin  the  Physica 
and  the  De  coelo  etmundi  of  Aristotle,  and  another  Johannes 
Hispalensis  or  Avendeath,  a  converted  Jew  who  translated, 
among  many  other  works,  the  pseudo-Aristotelian  treatise 
Secretum  secretorum  philosophorum  which  greatly  influ- 
enced Roger  Bacon,  as  well  as  the  astronomical  works  of 
Messahalah  which  long  formed  the  staple  popular  account 
of  the  system  of  the  world.  These  all  worked  in  Spain. 
The  Sicilian  group  was  less  active.  The  last  translator  of 
Sicilian  origin,  the  Jew  Farragut  (Farradj  ben  Selim,  Moses 
Farachi,  d.  1285),  was  a  student  at  Salerno,  and  his  works 
were  among  the  latest  of  any  influence  that  issued  from  that 
ancient  seat  of  learning.  These  later  translators  are,  however, 
mainly  unimportant,  and  at  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century  we 
may  say  that  the  period  of  translation  was  rapidly  closing. 
We  have  now  to  turn  to  the  actual  material  thus  conveyed 
to  Latin  Christendom.  It  difl^ered  rather  in  degree  than  in 
kind  from  that  of  the  earlier  Dark  Age  and  from  that  of 

127 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

the  Age  of  Arabian  Infiltration.  The  systems  differed 
in  the  degree  to  which  the  logical  conclusions  from  the 
premises  provided  were  pushed,  and  in  the  degree  to  which 
each  was  influenced  by  certain  theological  conceptions. 

In  the  late  classical  age  there  had  developed  the  Stoic 
system  of  thought,  which  divided  with  Neoplatonism  all 
the  more  philosophical  minds  of  the  ancient  world.  This 
Stoic  philosophy  assumed  that  man's  fate  was  determined 
by  an  interplay  of  forces  the  nature  and  character  of  which 
were,  in  theory  at  least,  completely  knowable.  The  micro- 
cosm, man,  reflected  the  macrocosm,  the  great  world  that 
lay  around  him.  But  how  and  to  what  extent  did  he  reflect 
it  ?  In  seeking  to  determine  these  points  Stoicism  and 
Neoplatonism  and  the  other  philosophical  systems  of  the 
classical  twilight  gleaned  from  many  sources  material  which 
they  passed  on  in  a  corrupted  state  to  the  Latin  world.  In 
a  somewhat  less  imperfect  form  these  materials  lingered 
for  centuries  in  the  Byzantine  world  until,  with  the  great 
outburst  of  Islam,  they  were  caught  up  and  elaborated 
by  the  Arabic  culture.  Thus  elaborated,  they  were  sent 
forth  a  second  time  to  Latin  Europe  by  the  process  of 
infiltration  and  translation. 

The  astrological  conceptions  of  the  Stoics  and  of  the 
later  Christian  ages  drew  both  on  Plato  and  on  Aristotle. 
The  hylozoism  of  the  Tim^us,  the  doctrine  that  the  uni- 
verse itself  and  the  matter  of  which  it  is  composed  is  living, 
gave  a  suggestive  outline  to  the  hypothesis  of  the  paral- 
lelism of  macrocosm  and  microcosm.  But  the  main  details 
of  the  hypothesis  were  drawn  from  Aristotle,  whose  views 
of  the  structure  of  the  universe  were  the  framework  on 
which  the  whole  of  mediaeval  science  was  built.  Especially 
Aristotle's  conception  of  the  stars  as  living  things,  of  a 
nature  higher  and  nobler  than  that  of  any  substance  or 
128 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

being  in  the  spheres  below,  was  a  clear  point  of  departure 
from  which  the  influence  of  the  heavenly  bodies  over 
human  destinies  might  be  developed.  The  changes  under- 
gone by  physical  bodies  on  the  earth  below  were  held  to  be 
controlled  by  parallel  movements  in  the  heavens  above. 

Aristotelian  theory  carried  the  matter  farther.  It  distin- 
guished the  perfect,  regular,  circular  motion  of  the  fixed 
stars  from  imperfect,  irregular,  and  linear  motion,  such  as 
that  of  the  planets.  The  stars  moving  regularly  in  a  circle 
controlled  the  ordered  course  of  nature,  the  events  that  pro- 
ceeded along  regular,  manifest,  and  unalterable  rounds,  such 
as  those  of  winter  and  summer,  night  and  day,  growth 
and  decay;  the  erratic  planets  governed  the  less  ascer- 
tainable group  of  events  that  comprise  the  variable  elements 
in  the  world  around  and  within  us,  the  happenings  that  make 
life  the  uncertain,  hopeful,  dangerous,  happy  thing  it  is. 
It  was  to  the  ascertainment  of  the  factors  governing  this 
kaleidoscope  of  life  that  astrology  set  itself.  The  broad 
general  happenings  were  certain,  death  in  the  end  was 
sure,  and,  to  the  believing  Christian,  life  after  it.  But 
there  was  a  great  uncertain  zone  between  the  sure  and  the 
unsure  that  might  be  predicted  and  perhaps  avoided,  or, 
if  not  avoided,  its  worst  consequences  abated.  It  was  to 
this  process  of  insurance  that  the  astrologer  set  himself, 
and  his  task  remained  the  same  throughout  the  Middle 
Ages.  In  this  hope  savoir  ajin  de  prevoir  the  mediaeval 
was  at  one  with  the  modern  scientist.  The  matter  is  sum- 
marised for  us  by  Chaucer : 

Paraventure  in  thilke  large  book, 
Which  that  men  clipe  the  hevene,  y-writen  was 
With  sterres,  whan  that  he  his  birthe  took, 
That  he  for  love  sholde  han  his  deeth,  alias  ! 
For  in  the  sterres,  clerer  than  is  glas, 

\  I2Q 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

Is  written,  God  woot,  whoso  koude  it  rede. 
The  deeth  of  every  man,  withouten  drede. 

.  .  .  But  mennes  wittes  ben  so  dulle 
That  no  wight  kan  wel  rede  it  atte  fulle. 

The  Man  of  Lawes  Tale 

There  was,  however,  another  relationship  which  we 
cannot  fully  treat  here.  In  all  ages  there  are  two  prevalent 
types  of  mind.  The  religious  type  sees  that  the  world 
cannot  be  wholly  explained  and  falls  back  on  supernatural 
hypotheses.  The  scientific  type  prefers  to  assume  that 
the  laws  he  is  able  to  trace  in  regions  he  knows  and  under- 
stands are  but  a  sample  of  those  which  govern  the  universe 
in  all  its  unknown  parts  also,  and  that  if  we  knew  enough 
we  should  be  able  to  trace  law  everywhere.  The  type  of 
the  scientific  intellect  is  Lucretius,  who  accepts,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  the  control  of  man's  fate  by  a  law  which  includes 
even  the  heavenly  bodies.  *'  We  must,"  he  says,  **  give 
good  account  of  the  things  on  high,  in  what  way  the  courses 
of  sun  and  moon  come  to  be,  and  by  what  force  all  things 
are  governed  on  earth."  He  will  not  allow  immortality 
to  the  stars,  much  less  to  man.  All  are  subject  to 
the  same  immutable  law  of  generation  and  corruption. 
Very  different  is  the  attitude  of  St  Ambrose,  who  takes 
no  interest  in  aught  but  final  causes,  for  whom  the  very 
investigation  of  phenomena  seems  frivolous  and  aimless. 
*'  To  discuss  the  nature  and  position  of  the  earth,"  he  says, 
"  does  not  help  us  in  our  hope  of  life  to  come.  It  is 
enough  to  know  what  Scripture  says,  that  *  he  hung  up 
the  earth  upon  nothing  *  (Job  xxvi,  7).  Why,  then„  argue 
whether  He  hung  it  up  in  air  or  upon  water,  and  raise  a 
controversy  as  to  how  the  thin  air  could  sustain  the  earth, 
or  why,  if  upon  waters,  the  earth  goes  not  crashing  to  the 

130 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

bottom  ?  .  .  .  Not  because  the  earth  is  in  the  middle,  as 
if  suspended  on  an  even  balance,  but  because  the  majesty 
of  God  constrains  it  by  the  law  of  His  will,  does  it  endure 
stable  upon  the  unstable  and  the  void."    (Hexaemeron,  i,  6.) 

Between  two  such  extremes  the  mind  of  man  has  always 
hovered,  and  thus  hovered  the  mediaeval  mind.  The 
average  man  recognises  the  reign  of  law  in  the  smaller 
events  of  life,  but  places  all  his  spiritual  and  mental  life 
in  the  hands  of  God.  The  average  scientifically  trained 
man  recognises  the  reign  of  law  in  higher  matters  also,  but 
believes  in  his  own  free  will,  and  in  another  will  outside 
his  own  that  ultimately  governs  the  higher  and  greater 
events  of  his  life.  Beyond  these  two  stand  the  religious 
mystic  on  the  one  hand  and  the  materialist  on  the  other; 
the  one  for  whom  all  the  world  is  but  the  projection  of  the 
will  of  a  spirit,  the  other  for  whom  all  those  elements  in 
our  lives  which  most  men  assign  to  spirit  are  but  the 
workings  and  interaction  of  the  properties  of  matter. 

In  the  earlier  Middle  Ages,  as  in  the  earliest  Christian 
centuries,  the  world  was  but  God's  footstool,  and  all  its 
phenomena  were  as  little  worthy  of  study  as  Ambrose 
held  them  to  be.  This  sums  up  the  general  attitude  of 
the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  set  forth  by  Augustine,  who 
speaks  of  "  those  impostors  whom  they  style  mathema- 
ticians (i.e.^  astrologers)  .  .  .  who  use  no  sacrifice,  nor 
pray  to  any  spirit  for  their  divinations,  which  arts  Christian 
and  true  piety  consistently  rejects  and  condemns."  ^  By  the 
sixth  and  seventh  centuries,  however,  the  Church  has  come 
to  terms  with  astrology,  and  Isidore  regards  it,  in  part  at 
least,  as  a  legitimate  science.  He  distinguishes,  however, 
between  natural  and  superstitious  astrology.  The  latter 
is  "  that  science  which  is  practised  by  the  mathematici  who 
^  Confessions ^  iv,  4. 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

read  prophecies  in  the  heavens,  and  who  place  the  twelve 
constellations  as  rulers  over  the  members  of  man's  body 
and  soul,  and  who  predict  the  nativities  and  dispositions 
of  men  by  the  courses  of  the  stars."  ^  Nevertheless  Isidore 
accepts  many  of  the  conclusions  of  astrology.  He  advises 
the  physicians  to  study  it,  ascribes  to  the  moon  an  influence 
over  plant  and  animal  life  and  control  over  the  humours 
of  man,  while  he  accepts  without  question  the  influence 
of  the  dog-star  and  of  comets.  He  is  followed  by  the 
other  Dark  Age  scientists,  who  each  accept  a  little  more 
astrological  doctrine,  until  finally  in  such  a  writer  as 
Byrhtferth  we  get  the  complete  scheme.     (See  Fig.  i.) 

With  the  advent  of  the  Arabian  learning  astrology  became 
the  central  interest,  and  remained  so  until  the  triumph  of  the 
experimental  method  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  cen- 
turies. We  cannot  here  follow  the  details  of  the  developed 
astrological  scheme.  It  is  enough  for  our  purpose  to  have 
observed  that  the  general  material  law  which  it  implies 
had  become  widely  accepted  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  to 
have  traced  its  passage  from  antiquity  and  from  the  Orient 
into  the  thought  of  the  period  of  which  we  are  treating. 

There  was  another  fundamental  theory  of  mediaeval 
science  which,  equally  with  astrology,  was  inherited  from 
antiquity,  and  equally  with  it  was  reinforced  and  amplified  by 
the  Arabian  revival.  The  doctrine  of  the  four  elements  was 
conveyed  to  the  Middle  Ages  by  the  Aristotelian  writings. 

All  matter  was  held  to  be  made  up  of  four  essential 
elements — earth,  air,  fire,  and  water.  Each  of  the  elements 
was  in  its  turn  compounded  of  the  four  *  primary  qualities,' 
heat  and  cold,  moistness  and  dryness,  in  binary  com- 
bination. Thus  earth  was  cold  and  dry,  water  cold  and 
moist,  air  hot  and  moist,  and  fire  hot  and  dry.      Moreover, 

1   Origines,  iii,  27. 
132 


TO    MODERN  CIVILISATION 


Fig.  I.    Scheme  showing  Relation  of  Macrocosm  and  Microcosm, 

AFTER    ByRHTFERTH    (f.     lOOO) 


ns 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

each  element  in  the  macrocosm  corresponded  to  one  of 
four  imaginary  'humours'  in  the  microcosm;  thus  ele- 
mental earth  corresponded  to  '  black  bile,'  elemental  water 
to  '  phlegm,'  elemental  air  to  '  red  bile,'  and  elemental  fire 
to  *  blood.'     (See  Fig.  2.)     Now,  it  must  not  be  imagined 


Kui  WtU  < —  Ai 


tarth — »  BWk  bile 


Fig.  2.    Scheme  of  the  Four  Qualities,  the  Four  Elements,  and 
THE  Four  Humours 


that  these  elements  were  the  substances  that  we  know  by 
the  names  of  earth,  water,  air,  and  fire  in  this  world  below. 
The  elements  are  found  here  only  in  combination,  that  is, 
in  their  state  of  mistio,  to  use  the  technical  mediaeval 
expression.  Thus  the  substance  water,  though  it  contains 
a  preponderance  of  the  element  water,  contains  also  less 
amounts  of  the  other  three  elements ;  so  the  substance  air 
is  not  pure  elemental  air,  but  contains  only  a  preponderance 
of  that  element  intermixed  with  the  others.  It  was  usually 
admitted,  however,  that  the  elements  were  to  be  found 
134 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

in  a  pure  form  in  certain  regions  of  the  world,  though 
where  and  how  distributed  these  pure  elements  might  be, 
was  a  matter  of  varying  opinion. 

The  usual  view  was  something  like  this.     Earth,  the 
heaviest,    drossiest,    and   least    aspiring   of  the  elements, 


Fig.  3.    Scheme  of  the  Spheres 

naturally  tended  to  the  centre  of  the  world.  It  was  least 
likely  of  all  :he  elements  to  be  found  pure  because  of  its 
dressiness.  On  its  surface  floated  material  water,  and 
above  that  was  the  air,  also  in  the  material  state  in  which 
we  breathe  it.  High  up  in  the  air,  far  beyond  the  reach 
of  men,  were  the  eternal  zones  of  the  stars,  both  fixed  and 
wandering,  but  just  below  these  spheres,  wherein  the  celestial 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

bodies  dwelt,  were  three  concentric  zones  of  the  upper 
and  pure  elements.  These,  proceeding  outward  and  in 
ascending  degrees  of  tenuity,  were  water,  air  (sometimes 
confused  with  ether),  and  fire.  The  watery  zone  exhibited 
evidence  of  its  presence  by  clouds,  the  waters  that  God 
had  placed  above  the  firmament.  The  fiery  outermost 
zone  was  somehow  related  to  the  eternal  fire  of  the  heavenly 
bodies  which  lay  in  a  series  of  concentric  spheres  around  it. 
In  these  outer  concentric  spheres  moved  the  planets,  each  in 
its  own  sphere,  and  beyond  them  all  was  the  sphere  of  the 
fixed  stars,  surrounded  by  the  outermost  zone  of  all,  the 
sphere  of  the  primum  mobile.  (See  Fig.  3.)  Tiiere  was  a 
certain  amount  of  variation  in  the  details  of  the  scheme, 
but  a  full  and  characteristic  development  of  it  is  provided 
for  us  by  such  a  writer  as  Dante.    (See  Fig.  4.) 

Especial  attention  was  always  paid  to  the  relation  of  the 
zodiacal  signs  to  the  planets.  Each  zodiacal  sign  was  held 
to  govern  or  to  have  special  influence  on  some  region  of  the 
body,  and  each  of  the  planets  was  held  to  influence  a  special 
organ.  The  actual  relations  of  zodiacal  signs,  planets,  and 
bodily  parts  and  organs  is  set  forth  in  suca  late  Latin 
writers  as  Firmicus  Maternus  {c.  330)  and  Avienus  {c.  380), 
and  in  innumerable  Greek  texts.  This  belief,  conveyed 
to  the  Dark  Age,  but  gradually  lost  during  its  course,  was 
brought  back  again  to  the  West  by  the  Arabs.  Nothing 
is  commoner  in  mediaeval  manuscripts  of  tae  scholastic 
period  than  a  human  figure  on  the  various  bodily  parts 
of  which  are  placed  the  signs  of  the  zodiac  held  to  control 
that  part.  Common,  too,  and  penetrating  even  to  Books 
of  Hours,  are  schemes  showing  the  relation  of  the  organs 
to  the  seven  planets.  The  whole  system  thus  became 
intimately  interwoven  with  the  conception  of  the  relation 
of  macrocosm  and  microcosm. 
136 


TO  MODERN   CIVILISATION 


Fig.  4.   Dante's  Conception  of  the  Universe 


137 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

Doctrine  of  this  type  received  into  Europe  was  stamped 
with  the  special  form  of  Western  thought.  Now,  it  was 
characteristic  of  the  mediaeval  Western  thinker  that  he 
sought  always  a  complete  scheme  of  things.  He  was  not 
content  to  separate,  as  we  do,  one  department  of  know- 
ledge or  one  class  of  phenomena,  and  consider  it  in  and  by 
itself.  Still  less  would  he  have  held  it  a  virtue  to  become 
a  specialist,  to  limit  his  outlook  to  one  department  with 
the  object  of  increasing  the  sum  of  knowledge  in  it. 

His  universe,  it  must  be  remembered,  so  far  as  it  was 
material,  was  limited.  The  outer  limit  was  the  primum 
mobile,  and  of  all  within  that  he  had  been  provided  with  a 
definite  scheme.  His  task,  and  at  first  his  only  task,  was 
to  elaborate  that  scheme  in  connexion  with  the  moral 
world.  To  do  this  was  in  the  first  post-Arabian  period 
the  work  especially  of  the  mystics.  Such  writers  as  Hugh 
of  St  Victor  (1095-1141),  who  drew  on  the  earlier  and 
more  vague  Arabian  rumours,  Bernard  Sylvestris  {c.  1 1 50), 
who  relied  on  Hermann  the  Cripple,  and  Hildegard 
(1098-1180),  who  was  influenced  by  Sylvestris  and  by 
other  Arabicised  writings,  all  produced  most  elaborate 
mystical  schemes  based  on  the  doctrine  of  the  macrocosm 
and  microcosm.  These  schemes  took  into  account  the 
form  of  the  world  and  of  man  as  derived  from  Arabian 
accounts,  and  read  into  each  relationship  a  spiritual  mean- 
ing. For  such  an  attitude  of  mind  there  could  be  no 
ultimate  distinction  between  physical  events,  moral  truths, 
and  spiritual  experiences.  In  their  fusion  of  the  internal 
and  external  universe  these  mystics  have  much  in  common 
with  the  mystics  of  all  ages.  The  culmination  of  the 
process,  so  far  as  our  period  is  concerned,  is  reached  with 
Dante  (1265-1321). 

But  with  the  thirteenth  century  new  currents  of  thought 
138 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

set  in.  The  Arabian  science  was  at  last  won,  the 
scientific  works  of  Aristotle  were  becoming  accessible 
and  gradually  entering  the  curriculum,  the  universities 
were  firmly  established,  and  there  were  the  beginnings 
of  a  knowledge  of  Greek.  We  are  now  in  the  high 
scholastic  period.  The  appointed  task  of  the  great  teachers 
of  that  period,  Alexander  of  Hales  {d.  1245),  Robert 
Grosseteste  {d.  1253),  Albertus  Magnus  (i  193-1280), 
and  St  Thomas  Aquinas  (i 225-1 274),  was  to  marshal  the 
new  knowledge  and  to  make  it  more  readily  accessible. 
It  is  remarkable  that  this  process,  involving  a  rapid  change 
and  development  in  the  whole  mental  life  of  the  world, 
involving,  that  is  to  say,  progress  in  fact,  did  not  develop 
a  more  passionate  and  more  conscious  faith  in  progress 
in  knowledge.  Yet  there  is  little  or  no  evidence  of  direct 
observation  of  nature  in  the  great  physical  encyclopaedias 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  such  as  that  of  Alexander  of 
Neckam  (11 57-1 2 17),  Vincent  de  Beauvais  (i  190-1264), 
and  Bartholomew  de  Glanvil  (c.  1260).  The  mediaeval 
mind  was  obsessed  with  the  idea  of  the  mortal  world  as  finite, 
and  therefore  completely  knowable  both  in  space  and  in 
time,  so  that  the  motive  for  detailed  research,  in  our  modern 
sense  of  the  word,  was  not  present.  The  task  of  the  writers 
of  these  encyclopaedias  was  rather  to  give  a  general  outline  of 
knowledge  in  their  scheme,  to  set  forth  such  a  survey  of  the 
universe  as  would  be  in  accord  with  spiritual  truth.  The 
frame-work  on  which  this  encyclopaedic  scheme  was  built 
was  Aristotle,  largely  as  conveyed  by  the  Arab  commentator 
Averroes.  Yet  it  is  an  amusing  reflection  on  the  incomplete- 
ness of  all  philosophical  systems  that  Albert,  who  perhaps 
more  than  any  man  was  responsible  for  the  scholastic  world- 
system,  was  among  the  very  few  mediaeval  writers  who  were 
real  observers  of  nature.      It  is,  after  all,  in  the  very  essence 

139 


MEDL^VAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

of  the  human  animal  to  love  the  world  around  it  and  to 
watch  its  creatures.  Naturam  expellas  jurca  tamen  usque 
recurret.  Albert,  scholastic  of  the  scholastics,  drowned  in 
erudition  and  the  most  learned  man  of  his  time,  has  left 
us  evidence  in  his  De  vegetabilibus  that  the  scientific  spirit 
was  beginning  to  awake.  As  an  independent  botanical 
observer  he  is  by  no  means  contemptible,  and  this  element 
in  him  marks  the  new  dawn  which  we  trace  better  in  his 
successors. 

Thus  the  best  of  the  systematisers  among  the  schoolmen 
were  leading  on  to  the  direct  observation  of  nature.  Con- 
temporary with  Albert  and  Aquinas  were  several  remarkable 
scholastic  writers  who  form  the  earliest  group  with  whom 
the  conscious  advancement  of  knowledge  was  a  permanent 
interest.  These  men  were  the  first  consciously  forward- 
looking  scientific  thinkers  since  the  fourth  century.  The 
earliest  of  them  was  the  Pole  Witelo  {c.  1250),  an  acute 
mathematical  investigator,  whose  work  was  based  on  a  trans- 
lation of  the  Arab  Alhazen.  Witelo  knew  something  of 
optics,  and  was  aware  of  the  action  of  segments  of  a  crystal 
sphere  as  lenses. 

Contemporary  with  Witelo  was  a  very  remarkable 
Franciscan  group.  There  is  no  stranger  and  more  im- 
pressive chapter  in  the  whole  history  of  thought  than  that 
of  the  early  history  of  the  Franciscans.  Within  the 
memory  of  men  who  had  known  the  saintly  founder  of 
the  Order  (11 81-1226),  the  'Penitents  of  Assisi,'  the 
'friars  minor,'  sworn  as  'jongleurs  of  God'  to  bring 
Christ  cheerfully  to  the  humblest  and  the  meanest,  sworn 
to  possess  nothing,  to  earn  their  bread  from  day  to  day  by 
the  work  of  their  own  hands,  or  at  need  by  begging,  for- 
bidden to  lay  by  store  or  to  accumulate  capital,  this  Order 
of  humble  servants  of  Christ  had  produced  a  series  of 
140 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

monumental  and  scholarly  intellects,  who  between  them 
not  only  initiated  what  bid  fair  to  be  a  renaissance  of  science 
and  letters,  but  also  aided  in  the  formation  of  the  bulwark 
which  long  resisted  the  very  movement  that  thus  emanated 
from  the  Order  itself.  To  both  parties  the  English  Fran- 
ciscan houses  contributed  an  overwhelming  share.  To 
the  former,  or  scientific  party,  as  we  may  call  them, 
belonged  Robert  Grosseteste  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  John 
Pecham  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  the  elusive  Adam 
Marsh,  and,  above  all,  Roger  Bacon;  to  the  latter  or 
theological  party  are  attached  the  names  of  Alexander 
of  Hales  {d.  1245),  Duns  Scotus  (1265  ?-i3o8  ?),  and 
William  of  Ockham  {d.  1349). 

The  primary  inspirer  of  the  scientific  movement  was 
undoubtedly  the  great  Bishop  of  Lincoln  himself,  and  its 
aims  are  set  forth  for  us  by  his  pupil  Roger.  "  Nobody," 
says  Bacon,  "  can  attain  to  proficiency  in  the  science  of 
mathematics  by  the  method  hitherto  known  unless  he 
devotes  to  its  study  thirty  or  forty  years,  as  is  evident  from 
the  case  of  those  who  have  flourished  in  those  departments 
of  knowledge,  such  as  the  Lord  Robert  of  holy  memory 
and  Friar  Adam  Marsh  .  .  .  and  that  is  the  reason  why 
so  few  study  that  science."  Again  :  "  There  were  found 
some  famous  men,  as  Robert  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  and  Adam 
Marsh,  and  some  others,  who  knew  how  by  the  power  of 
mathematics  to  unfold  the  causes  of  all  things  and  to  give 
a  sufficient  explanation  of  human  and  divine  phenomena; 
and  the  assurance  of  this  fact  is  to  be  found  in  the  writings 
of  those  great  men,  as,  for  instance,  in  their  works  on  the 
impression  [of  the  elements],  on  the  rainbow  and  the 
comets,  on  the  sphere,  and  on  other  questions  appertaining 
both  to  theology  and  to  natural  philosophy."  The  work  of 
this  remarkable  group  of  Franciscans  at  Oxford  extended 

141 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

beyond  the  sciences  to  language  and  literature.  There 
was  the  beginning  of  a  real  renaissance  of  Greek  letters 
which  died  an  early  death.  But  the  scientific  revival 
lingered  on  until  recalled  to  life  by  a  second  revival  of  a 
later  century.  It  may  be  convenient  to  have  on  record 
a  summary  of  the  scientific  achievements  of  Bacon,  the 
greatest  of  the  Franciscan  group  and  the  first  man  of 
science  in  the  modern  sense. 

1.  He  attempted  to  set  forth  a  system  of  natural  know- 
ledge far  in  advance  of  his  time.  The  basis  of  that  system 
was  observation  and  experiment.  He  was  clearly  the  first 
man  in  modern  Europe  of  whom  this  can  be  said. 

2.  He  was  the  first  man  in  modern  Europe  to  see  the 
need  for  the  accurate  study  of  foreign  and  ancient  languages. 
He  attempted  grammars  of  Greek  and  Hebrew  along  definite 
scientific  lines.  He  also  projected  a  grammar  of  Arabic. 
Moreover,  he  laid  down  those  lines  of  textual  criticism 
which  have  only  been  developed  within  the  last  century. 

3.  He  not  only  expatiated  on  the  experimental  method, 
but  was  himself  an  experimenter.  The  criteria  of  priority 
were  not  then  what  they  are  now,  but  his  writings  are  im- 
portant in  the  development  of  the  following  sciences : 

(a)  Optics.  His  work  on  this  subject  was  a  text- 
book for  the  next  two  centuries.  He  saw  the  im- 
portance of  lenses  and  concave  mirrors,  and  showed  a 
grasp  of  mathematical  optics.  He  described  a  system 
which  is  equivalent  to  a  two-lens  apparatus,  and 
there  is  trustworthy  evidence  that  he  actually  used  a 
compound  system  of  lenses  equivalent  to  a  telescope. 

(b)  Astronomy  was  Bacon's  perpetual  interest. 
He  spent  the  best  part  of  twenty  years  in  the  con- 
struction of  astronomical  tables.  His  letter  to  the 
Pope   in   favour   of  the   correction  of  the    calendar, 

J  42 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

though  unsuccessful  in  his  own  days,  was  borrowed 
and  reborrowed,  and  finally,  at  third-hand,  produced 
the  Gregorian  correction. 

(c)  Geography.  He  was  the  first  geographer  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  He  gave  a  systematic  description  of 
Europe,  Asia,  and  part  of  Africa.  He  collected 
first-hand  evidence  from  travellers  in  all  these  con- 
tinents. His  arguments  as  to  the  size  and  spheri- 
city of  the  earth  were  among  those  that  influenced 
Columbus. 

(d)  Mechanical  Science,  Suggestions  by  him  in- 
clude the  automatic  propulsion  of  vehicles  and  vessels. 
He  records  the  working  out  of  a  plan  for  a  flying- 
machine. 

(e)  Chemistry.  The  chemical  knowledge  of  his 
time  was  systematised  in  his  tracts.  His  description 
of  the  composition  and  manufacture  of  gunpowder  is 
the  earliest  that  has  reached  us.  It  is  clear  that  he 
had  worked  out  for  himself  some  of  the  chemistry  of 
the  subject. 

(f)  Mathematics.  His  insistence  on  the  supreme 
value  of  mathematics  as  a  foundation  for  education 
recalls  the  attitude  of  Plato.  It  was  an  insistence  that 
the  method  of  thought  was  at  least  as  important  as 
its  content. 

Summed  up,  his  legacy  to  thought  may  be  regarded  as 
accuracy  of  method,  criticism  of  authority,  and  reliance  on 
experiment — the  pillars  of  modern  science. 

The  interest  taken  in  Roger  Bacon's  works  was  con- 
tinuous. "  Friar  Thomas  Bungay,  whom  ancient  tradition 
associates  with  Bacon,  was  the  tenth  lector  to  the  friars  at 
Oxford.  John  Pccham,  the  eleventh  lector,  studied  mathe- 
matics and  optics  under  Bacon,  and  was  first  attracted  and 

143 


'/ 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

finally  repelled  by  his  astrological  theories.  William 
Herbert,  who  afterward  became  lector  at  Oxford,  was  at 
Paris  about  the  time  of  Bacon's  death,  and  diligently 
collected  manuscripts  of  his  works  for  the  friary  at  Hereford. 
Before  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century  attempts  were 
made  to  '  edit  *  Bacon  by  collecting  together  passages  from 
his  writings  bearing  on  the  same  or  kindred  subjects. 
Pierre  Dubois  recommended  the  study  of  his  mathematical 
work  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century.  The 
large  number  of  manuscripts  of  his  Perspectiva,  or  Optics, 
still  existing,  some  of  them  *  school  copies,'  and  references 
to  it  in  disputations  at  Oxford,  show  that  the  work  was 
studied  and  regarded  as  authoritative  in  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  centuries.  But  his  influence  extended  beyond 
the  Middle  Ages;  through  Pierre  d'Ailly  and  the  Imago 
mundi  Bacon  reaches  out  his  hand  to  Columbus;  through 
Paul  of  Middelburg  (1445-1534)  and  the  reform  of  the 
calendar  to  Copernicus."  {A.  G.  Little^  Bacon  was  not 
an  isolated  phenomenon,  but  an  important  link  in  the 
chain  of  scientific  development. 

But  during  the  century  after  Bacon,  though  his  mathe- 
matical and  philosophical  works  were  still  studied  in  the 
schools,  the  greatest  advances  were  rather  among  the 
physicians,  of  whom  the  last  half  of  the  thirteenth  and  the 
first  half  of  the  fourteenth  century  exhibit  an  especially 
brilliant  group.  Bologna  had  possessed  a  medical  school 
since  the  twelfth  century,  and  had  inherited  the  learning 
of  Salerno.  At  Bologna  had  worked  Hugh  of  Lucca 
(^.1252?)  and  his  son  or  pupil  Theodoric  (1206-1298). 
Here,  after  Salerno,  surgery  may  be  said  to  have  been  born 
again  with  the  practice  of  Roland  of  Parma  {c,  1250),  the 
successor  and  faithful  follower  of  Roger  of  Salerno.  Here, 
above  all,  William  of  Saliceto  (l 201-1280)  established  a 
144 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

practical  method  of  anatomisatlon  which  was  inherited  by 
Mondino  da  Luzzi  (1276- 1328),  whose  work  became  the 
general  anatomical  text-book  of  the  later  Middle  Ages. 

The  medical  school  of  Montpellier  was  now  coming  to 
the  fore,  and  here  practised  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
personalities  of  mediaeval  medicine.  Arnald  of  Villanova 
(1235— 13 1 3)  was  not  only  one  of  the  earliest  exponents  of 
the  Hippocratic  method  of  observing  and  carefully  recording 
symptoms  of  actual  cases  of  disease,  but  he  also  deeply 
influenced  alchemy.  Even  more  remarkable  and  more 
modern  in  his  outlook  was  the  heretical  Peter  of  Abano 
(i 250-1 320).  He  had  a  knowledge  of  Greek,  but  the 
chief  philosophical  influence  under  which  he  came  was  that 
of  the  Spanish  Arab  Averroes,  whose  doctrine  of  the 
infinite  extension  of  the  universe  gave  a  better  background 
to  a  progressive  outlook  than  the  more  prevalent  mediaeval 
view.  Peter's  greatest  and  best-known  work,  the  Conciliator^ 
expresses  his  mediation  between  the  now  commencing 
humanistic  Greek  school  and  the  Arabists.  Among  his 
views  most  worth  record  may  be  mentioned  his  statements 
that  the  air  has  weight,  that  the  brain  is  the  source  of  the 
nerves  and  the  heart  of  the  vessels — all  ideas  that  in  his 
time  were  new.  He  made  a  remarkably  accurate  measure  of 
the  length  of  the  year  as  365  days,  6  hours,  4  minutes. 

The  second  half  of  the  fourteenth  century,  in  part  owing 
to  the  prevalence  of  epidemics  and  notably  of  the  Black 
Death,  shows  a  distinct  falling  off  in  the  advance.  In 
medicine  the  most  noteworthy  name  is  that  of  Guy  de 
Chauliac  of  Montpellier  (i 300-1 370),  perhaps  the  most 
influential  of  all  the  mediaeval  surgeons.  Outside  the  ranks 
of  the  physicians  perhaps  the  most  remarkable  figure  in 
fourteenth-century  science  is  the  French  Jewish  philosopher 
Levi  ben  Gerson  (12 8 8-1 344).      His  work  as  astronomer 

K  145 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

was  important  as  illustrating  the  consciousness  of  a  growing 
discontent  with  the  Ptolemaic  system  of  the  universe. 
With  the  fifteenth  century  discontent  with  the  entire  medi- 
aeval scientific  scheme  becomes  more  obvious,  and  there 
is  a  real  attempt  to  adjust  theory  by  means  of  experiment. 
The  turning-point  is  provided  by  the  work  of  Nicholas 
of  Cusa  (1401-1464),  who  became  a  cardinal  and  made 
a  fruitless  attempt  to  reform  the  calendar.  The  philo- 
sophical basis  of  his  experimental  bias  is  set  forth  in  his 
book  De  docta  ignorantia^  which  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
absurdity  of  erudition,  as  its  name  might  be  thought  to 
imply,  but  concerns  itself  with  acknowledged  ignorance, 
i.e.^  with  the  inability  of  the  human  mind  to  conceive  the 
absolute  or  infinite.  His  theoretical  views  led  him  to  a 
belief  that  the  earth  is  moving,  though  he  attained  to  no 
genuine  heliocentric  theory.  He  is  a  real  experimenter, 
and  he  records  a  careful  experiment  on  a  growing  plant — 
afterward  pirated  by  the  seventeenth-century  writer  van 
Helmont — proving  that  it  does  absorb  something  of 
weight  from  the  air.  This  is  the  first  biological  experi- 
ment of  modern  times,  and  incidentally  the  first  formal 
proof  that  the  air  has  weight. 

Beginning  with  Nicholas  of  Cusa,  we  may  watch  the 
Middle  Ages  branch  out  into  the  Renaissance  period.  In 
philosophy  Nicholas  reaches  out  through  Pomponazzi  and 
Ramus  to  Francis  Bacon  and  Descartes;  in  his  conceptions 
of  the  nature  of  matter,  through  Paracelsus  to  the  dawn  of 
modern  chemistry;  in  astronomy,  through  Purbach,  Regio- 
montanus,  and  Paul  of  Middelburg  to  Copernicus.  By 
the  work  of  such  men  as  these  the  whole  fabric  of  the 
mediaeval  teaching  of  the  macrocosm  was  gradually  torn  to 
shreds. 

The  history  of  the  process  from  this  stage  onward  is 
146 


CHRONOLOGY  OF  MEDI^.VAL  SCIENCE 


THE  CLASSICAL  TWILIGHT 


Latins 


Apuleius 
Porphyry 
Cbalcidius 


300 


400 


( -Dioscorides 
Pseudo  -I  -Hippocrates 

i -Apuleius 
Firmicus  Avienus 

Vindician 


Ptolemy 
Soranus 
Galen 


Greeks 


Oribasius 
Nemesius 


Martianus  Capella 
Macrobius 
Sextus  Placitus 
Marcellus  Empiricus 


500 


Moschion 
Boethius 
Cassiodorus 


6°°  Isidore 


700 


Bede 
Alcuin 


800 


Raban 
Erigena 


900 


Byrhtferth 


Gariopontus  and  other  early 

Salemitans 

Translators 
Constantine 
Adelard 


"  O'Crea 
Avendeatn^^Goozalez 
Robert  of  Chester 
Gerard  of  Cremona 

.  Michael  Scot 


1300 


1400 


Gerard  of  Sabbioneta 

Alfred  the  Englishman 
Farragut 


THE  DARK  AGE 


Alexander  of  Tralles 


Paul  of  /Egina 


Fathers 


Tertullian 
Lactantius 


[Baptism  of  Constantine] 

Ambrose 

Jerome 

Augustine 


500 


Gregory  the  Great 


800 


AGE  OF  ARABIAN  INFILTRATION 

First  Arabian  Itnpact 
Donnolo 
'  Alcandrius  ' 

Gerbert 

Hermann  the  Cripple 


Later  Salemitans 


Marbod 

Odo  of  Meune 


SCHOLASTIC   AGE 

Experimenters 


W'itelo  Adam  Marsh 

Roger  Bacon    Pecham 
William  of  Saliceto 
Theodoric 


Amald  Mondino 

Peter  of  Abano 

Levi  ben  Gerson 

Guy  de  Chauliac 


Transmutors 


Hugh  of  St  Victor 
Bernard  Sylvestris 

Hildegard 
Alexander  of  Neckam 


Alexander  of  Hales 
Albert  Aquinas 

GrossetesteVincentBeauvais 
Bartholomew  de  Glanvil 


X300 


Nicholas  of  Cusa 
Purbach      Regiomontanus 
Pomponazzi 
Leonardo 


Paracelsus 
Copernicus 
Vesalius 


1500 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

not  very  complex.  Anatomy  had  been  systematically 
studied  in  the  universities  since  the  thirteenth  century.  By 
the  end  of  the  fifteenth  it  was  common  for  artists  and 
physicians  to  have  had  some  experience  of  dissection,  and 
the  genius  of  Leonardo  was  only  working  on  a  subject 
of  general  study.  With  the  dawn  of  the  sixteenth  century 
anatomy  was  a  recognised  subject  of  investigation  as  well 
as  of  teaching,  and  the  achievement  of  Vesalius,  vast  though 
it  was,  differed  from  that  of  his  predecessors  in  exactness, 
completeness,  and  independence,  but  not  in  its  fundamental 
character.  By  1543  it  was  as  difficult  for  an  anatomist  to 
trace  in  the  lineaments  of  the  viscera  the  impress  of  the 
heavenly  bodies  as  it  was  for  the  astronomer  to  believe  that 
the  heavens  were  foreshadowed  in  the  anatomy  of  the 
body  of  man. 

In  theology  too  the  vociferous  insistence  of  both  religious 
parties  on  the  divine  origin  of  their  doctrines  implied  an 
independence  of  the  spiritual  from  the  material  universe 
that  woald  have  been  incomprehensible  to  the  mystics 
of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries.  The  material 
world  had  ceased  to  have  its  old  spiritual  significance,  and 
was  become  the  acknowledged  dwelling-place  of  laws, 
discoverable  but  not  discovered. 

As    the    proof-sheets    of  the    De   revolutionihus    orbium 

ccelestium  fell  fluttering  to  the  ground  from  the  dying  hand 

of  Copernicus,  something  more  than  his  great  spirit  had  gone 

from  the  world ;  the  whole  system  of  mediaeval  science  was 

no  more. 

Charles  Singer 


148 


ART 

I 

IT  has  been  said — and  such  epigrams  serve  to  hang 
a  half-truth  in  the  memory — that  all  the  great  representa- 
tive art  of  the  world  flows  from  two  sources,  Greece  and 
China.  The  art  of  China  never  penetrated  into  Europe  ; 
and  therefore,  though  it  was  a  mediaeval  art,  and  the 
painters  of  the  T'ang  and  Sung  dynasties  were  during  some 
centuries  the  greatest  in  the  world,  I  will  make  a  present 
of  it  to  the  Adversary  and  confine  myself  to  Europe — nay, 
to  Christendom ;  since  the  argument  for  mediaeval  art 
is  so  great  that  we  can  afford  to  neglect  those  Persian, 
Saracenic,  and  Mughal  developments,  derivative  from 
Byzantinism  or  interwoven  with  it,  and  to  make  of  them 
also  a  present  to  the  Adversary — leaving  them  as  reserves 
behind  the  lines  of  our  argument  which  it  will  not  be 
necessary  to  draw  upon. 

We  have  a  period  of  a  thousand  years,  from  the  fifth 
century  to  the  fifteenth,  from  Theodoric  with  his  basilicas 
and  mosaics,  from  Justinian,  when  architectural  creation 
culminated  in  the  glory  of  St  Sofia,  from  the  purely  Byzan- 
tine city  of  Rome  between  the  sixth  and  ninth  centuries, 
through  the  giant  vitality  of  the  Romanesque  period  and 
the  mastery  of  Gothic,  to  the  dispersion  of  the  Greeks  and 
of  their  '  new  '  old  learning  in  1453,  and  the  discovery  of 
America  in  1492. 

149 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

The  end  of  this  period  was  very  brilliant.  Consider 
painting,  for  instance.  Before  the  fall  of  Constantinople, 
Duccio,  Giotto,  Orcagna,  Taddeo  Gaddi,  Masaccio,  the 
Van  Eycks  were  already  figures  of  the  past;  Van  der 
Weyden  was  some  fifty-three  years  old,  Fra  Angelico 
within  two  years  of  his  death.  Or  if  you  take  the  later 
date,  1492,  as  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages,  Paolo  Uccello 
and  Dierick  Bouts  were  dead,  the  two  Bellinis  were  over 
sixty,  Crivelli  was  probably  dead,  Memlinc  and  Ghirlandajo 
had  but  two  years  to  live,  and  Benozzo  Gozzoli  six.  Nay, 
by  1492  Botticelli  was  already  forty-six  and  Leonardo 
forty;  even  Diirer,  Michelangelo,  and  Titian  had  begun 
to  draw.  We  owe  the  art  of  modern  painting  to  the  later 
centuries  of  the  Middle  Ages.  That,  in  the  realm  of  art, 
is  one  'mediaeval  contribution  to  modern  civilisation.'  It 
is  so  stupendous  that  I  feel  tempted  to  say  "  My  lecture 
is  now  over  " ;  or,  at  least,  following  an  old  custom,  to  sit 
down  for  a  moment  and  take  a  pinch  of  snuff. 


II 

I  understand  that  the  historians  of  the  twentieth  century 
have  no  use  for  the  Renaissance.  We  have  discovered 
the  principle  of  continuity.  Even  in  natural  science  there 
was  no  renaissance :  there  was  just  a  beginning,  and  that 
beginning  came,  I  understand,  in  the  England  of  the 
thirteenth  century. 

In  art  also  we  have,  I  think,  no  real  use  for  the  word, 
except  to  describe  a  style  of  architecture — at  first  Italian — 
which  became  really  articulate  with  Alberti  in  1460  and 
Bramante  in  1490.  There  was,  it  is  true,  a  growing 
antiquarian '  enthusiasm  in  the  fifteenth  century  which 
150 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

more  or  less  affected  all  the  arts,^  and  revolutionised  orna- 
ment, so  that  to  the  revival  of  Roman  decorative  motives 
we  may  also  justly  apply  the  word  '  Renaissance,'  as  a 
convenient  though  inaccurate  term,  like  '  Gothic  ' ;  but 
there  was  no  renaissance  or  rebirth  of  art  in  the  fifteenth 
century.  There  was  only  a  continued  growth ;  and  that 
growth,  when  it  was  fully  infected  by  the  classical  anti- 
quarianism,  was  quickly  smitten  with  decay,  so  that  in  the 
first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century  its  decline  was  in  full 
progress,  and  the  end  came  while  Michelangelo  was  still 
towering  to  his  grave.  There  remained,  of  course,  the 
technical  mastery  which  had  been  acquired  between  the 
eleventh  century  and  the  sixteenth.  That  skill  has  never 
left  us ;  and  at  all  periods  since  the  thirteenth  century  it 
has  therefore  been  possible  for  great  accomplished  artists  to 
arise. 

Victorian  writers  like  John  Addington  Symonds,  while 
freely  acknowledging  the  speedy  and  pitiful  collapse, 
under  the  blight  of  pedantry  and  pseudo-paganism,  of 
what  they  called  the  Renaissance,  exaggerated  the  im- 
portance of  this  imaginary  rebirth  by  including  every 
Italian  painter  of  distinction,  as  far  back  as  the  thirteenth- 
century  Cimabue.  In  architecture  they  were  more  modest, 
and  dated  the  Renaissance  from  Brunellesco's  great  dome 
at  Florence  (1420),  which  is  partly  Byzantine,  partly 
Gothic,  and  wholly  Brunellesco.  They  used  also  to  claim 
all  the  later  mediaeval  Italian  sculptors,  not  only  Niccola 
but  Giovanni  and  Andrea  Pisano,  Giotto,  Orcagna,  Ghiberti, 
Donatello,    Luca    della    Robbia,    Mino    da    Fiesole.     Yet 

^  Painting  was  never  directly  affected,  because  there  were  no  antique 
paintings  then  to  be  copied — only  statues,  buildings,  and  books  {cf.  B.  Bcren- 
son.  The  Fenetian  Painters  of  the  Renaissance,  3rd  edit.,  p.  7).  Luckily  for  us, 
Pompei  was  then  well  hidden  under  its  scoria. 


MEDI/EVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

they  acknowledged  that  even  enthusiasts  for  the  antique, 
like  Ghiberti  and  Donatello,  never  copied  it,  but  remained 
wholly  original  and  realistic. •'■ 

The  truth  is,  of  course,  that  art  in  the  Middle  Ages 
had  moved  on  natural  lines,  and  therefore  had  continued 
to  be  traditional,  and  had  never  broken  with  antiquity — 
as  the  very  word  *  Romanesque  '  (of  which  Gothic  was  a 
development)  should  remind  us.  The  earliest  Christian 
art  was  Graeco-Roman ;  this  was  followed  by  the  develop- 
ment of  Hellenistic  art  which  we  call  Byzantine,  which 
in  turn  modified  Basilican  art  into  Byzantinesque  and 
Romanesque.  In  the  eleventh  century,  side  by  side  with 
Byzantine  sculpture  and  painting  in  Sicily  and  Venice, 
Roman  capitals  were  still  carved  in  Italy  and  France.^ 
As  Romanesque  passed  into  Gothic,  we  find  sculpture 
sometimes  obviously  inspired  by  antique  Roman  models, 
as  in  the  Visitation  group  at  Reims  Cathedral,  the  remark- 
able little  school  in  Apulia  under  Frederick  II  (1240), 
and  in  1260  the  sculpture  of  Niccola  Pisano  (an  artist 
whose  merits   have   been  exaggerated),  who  himself  came 

*  It  is  characteristic  of  our  false  perspective  that  even  in  so  excellent 
and  modern  a  history  of  art  as  Reinach's  Apollo,  Duccio  and  Fra  Angelico 
come  in  a  chapter  after  that  on  Renaissance  architecture. 

2  Not  in  Italy  only,  but  in  France  as  a  whole.  Even  a  district  as  far 
north  as  Burgundy  is  rich  in  fluted  Corinthian  pilasters  of  the  twelfth  century. 
Provence  abounds  in  Roman  ornament  and  Byzantine  statuary  :  it  did  not 
become  part  of  France  till  the  fifteenth  century,  and  passed  straight  from 
Romanesque  to  Renaissance.  In  architecture,  it  is  curious  to  compare  with 
Brunellesco's  dome  or  with  his  Pazzi  Chapel  in  Florence  {c.  1415)  such 
a  piece  of  work  as  the  twelfth-century  porch  at  Notre  Dame  des  Doms, 
Avignon,  which  is  so  classical  that  it  might  be  mistaken  for  Roman  work  ; 
whereas  the  Pazzi  Chapel  is,  like  the  dome,  wholly  original,  and  could 
never  be  mistaken  for  Roman.  Neither  could  the  earlier  Renaissance 
palaces,  or  the  fa(,ade  of  the  Certosa  of  Pavia  (1491),  which  might  be 
described  as  flamboyant  Romanesque.  When  Renaissance  architecture  had 
freed  itself  from  the  mediaeval  spirit,  it  speedily  lost  its  character  and  developed 
into  the  Baroque  and  Jesuit  styles  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century.  / 

152 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

from  Apulia.^  And  it  was  just  at  this  time  that  there 
came  the  great  period  of  Gothic  sculpture,  an  art 
realistic  and  original.  All  the  while  in  the  East  the 
autumn  glory  of  Byzantine  art  had  continued,  alive  but 
unchanged. 

In  painting  itself,  there  lay  behind  the  great  Italian 
developments  of  the  thirteenth  century  a  long  unbroken 
tradition  of  wall-painting,  which  reaches  back  to  the 
beginning  of  the  mediaeval  period, — beside  which  there 
runs  a  similar  practice  of  miniature  painting,  unequal, 
uncertain,  but  alive  and  full  of  power.  Of  the  wall- 
paintings,  naturally,  most  have  been  destroyed ;  but  it  must 
be  remembered  that  Romanesque  architecture  afforded 
wide  spaces  of  wall,  and  it  was  the  practice  to  cover  these 
spaces  with  pictures.  The  earliest  that  have  survived  in 
France,  at  St  Savin  in  Vienne,  belonging  to  the  end  of  the 
eleventh  century,  are  worthy  to  be  compared  with  the 
frescoes  attributed  to  Cimabue,  two  hundred  years  later.^ 
He  and  his  predecessors  of  the  thirteenth  century  worked 
on  an  older  mediaeval  tradition,  just  as  Leonardo  worked 
on  a  later,  and  Raffael  worked  on  Leonardo. 

Furthermore,  there  is  one  form  of  painting,  the  painting 
with  small  cubes  of  glass  upon  walls  and  other  surfaces, 

^  J.  A.  Symonds,  while  ascribing  all  Italian  *  Renaissance  '  sculpture  to 
the  influence  of  Niccola  Pisano,  is  full  of  admissions  :  he  "  could  not  wholly 
free  himself  from  the  defects  of  the  later  Romanesque  manner,"  he  "  resorted 
to  his  native  Tuscan  models,"  he  introduced  "  a  stir  of  life  and  movement, 
and  felt  his  subjects  with  an  intensity  alien  to  the  ideal  of  Graeco-Roman 
sculpture."  {Renaissance  in  Italy,  1882,  pp.  106,  113.)  Niccola  also  intro- 
duced the  new  Gothic  cusps  into  his  pulpit  at  Pisa,  and  his  son  Giovanni 
was  intensely  Gothic,  as  Symonds  agrees. 

*  Discoveries  in  recent  years  show  that  these  beautiful  paintings  were 
by  no  means  exceptional.  We  know  also  that  mural  painting  went  on  in 
France  from  as  early  as  the  fifth  century.  Romanesque  examples  have  been 
found  in  Germany.     In  Italy  there  are  the  noble  frescoes  at  San  Clcmente. 

^S2, 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

called  mosaic,  which  belongs  in  the  main  to  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  is  at  its  greatest  in  the  earlier  centuries, 
though  it  lasted  at  Venice  and  elsewhere  into  the  modern 
period.  Rising  to  perfection  in  the  great  Byzantine 
churches  of  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries,  it  was  not  less  fine 
in  the  Greece  of  the  eleventh,  in  the  Sicily,  Venice,  and 
Rome  of  the  eleventh,  twelfth,  and  thirteenth,  and  in 
Constantinople,  where  in  the  fourteenth  century  there  was  an 
independent  renaissance  of  painting — a  movement  of  great 
promise,  cut  short  by  the  Turkish  conquest.  Mosaic  is  a 
noble  form  of  the  pictorial  art  which  is  beyond  us  to-day, 
with  its  glittering  lights,  its  soft,  dusky  shadows,  its  depth 
of  colour,  its  majesty  of  vision  and  vastness  of  design.  The 
painting  of  the  thirteenth  century  sprang  out  of  it. 

In  other  words,  there  had  been  a  continued  development 
of  art  from  ancient  Egypt,  Crete,  Greece,  through  classical 
and  Byzantine  Rome,  and  through  the  Middle  Ages; 
interrupted  sporadically  by  the  barbarian  invasions  during 
the  first  half  of  the  Middle  Ages,  but  reinforced  from  the 
Eastern  Empire,  and  from  Syria  and  Armenia.  There  was 
a  quickened  development  from  the  eleventh  century  to  the 
sixteenth,  which  survived  the  so-called  Renaissance — the 
reaction  of  the  doctrinaire  upon  art — by  about  a  century, 
and  then  declined.  This  great  movement  was,  admittedly, 
not  a  reconstruction  of  the  antique;  but  there  had  been  a 
real  continuation  of  the  antique  throughout  the  Middle 
Ages. 

Ill 

Based  on  a  misapprehension  of  history,  the  theory  of 
the  Renaissance  vitiated  generations  of  criticism  and  still 
poisons  the  minds  of  artists  to-day — the  theory  that  there 
was  a  gap  between  the  paganism  of  the  antique  and  the 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

neo-paganism  of  the  Renaissance.  In  Symonds'  words, 
"  No  true  form  of  figurative  art  intervened  between  Greek 
sculpture  and  Italian  painting." 

This  theory  of  the  gap  was  held  more  intensely  in  France 
and  on  the  Continent :  it  was  an  indictment  not  only  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  but  of  Christianity.  Because  of  it,  the 
art  of  the  Renaissance  itself  ran  quickly  into  decadence; 
because  of  it,  in  part,  arose  the  Puritan  opposition  to  art ; 
because  of  it,  the  modern  world  has  been  confused,  wan- 
dering without  any  working  philosophy  of  aesthetic  (except 
the  false  one  that  the  end  of  art  is  to  give  pleasure),  without 
any  working  principle  by  which  to  live — for  if  the  moral 
excellence  of  Christianity  is  opposed  to  the  aesthetic  excel- 
lence of  the  body  and  of  art,  then  the  spirit  of  man  is  torn 
asunder.  Therefore  still  to-day  the  world  outside  the 
artists  follows  its  own  business — its  commerce,  science, 
and  measure  of  well-  and  ill-doing ;  while  those  who  care 
for  beauty  still  in  large  measure  (and  more  so  abroad  than 
here)  have  regarded  themselves  as  rebels  against  our 
common  civilisation,  living  in  a  peculiar  pale  of  their  own, 
often  in  a  '  Bohemia  '  aloof  alike  from  the  sphere  of  ethics 
and  of  knowledge.  To  be  an  artist,  they  had  been  told, 
was  to  be  '  pagan,'  since  art  was  not  possible  till  men  went 
back  behind  the  Christian  era  at  the  Renaissance;  and 
paganism  meant  a  crude  notion  of  following  one's  own 
impulses  and  discarding  the  accumulated  wisdom  of  the 
last  two  thousand  years.  It  ignored  the  fact  that  the  mind 
of  man  has  been  profoundly  changed,  and  that  we  cannot 
go  back  to  some  imaginary  age  when  men  were  supposed 
to  be  like  beautiful  untroubled  children.  The  result  was 
that  artists  were  often  trained  in  centres  of  great  shallowness 
and  narrow-mindedness,  and  in  a  real  ignorance  of  the  world. 
They  had  made  a  world  of  their  own,  they  were  out  of 

^55 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

touch  with  the  great  mass  of  human  tradition ;  and  as  a 
consequence  they  have  failed  to  convert  the  world  back  to 
an  understanding  of  beauty,  while  often  the  most  accom- 
plished work  has  lacked  the  power  which  comes  from 
adequate  spiritual  impulses. 

Now  the  truth,  of  course,  is  that  there  was  no  gap.  Men 
followed  art  in  the  Christian  era  as  well  as  in  any  other, 
and  there  are  extant  Christian  paintings  as  early  as  the 
first  century.  They  did  what  they  could.  Sculpture, 
indeed,  did  almost  disappear  in  the  pagan  empire  of  the 
second  century,  between  Hadrian  and  Constantine.  It 
revived  under  definitely  Christian  inspiration  after  Con- 
stantine, and  produced  beautiful  reliefs  in  marble  and 
ivory  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries — sculptures  about 
which  connoisseurs  would  have  raved — such  has  been  our 
snobbishness — had  they  been  found  buried  beneath  the 
ruins  of  some  ancient  Greek  city.  The  Byzantine 
ivories  continued  to  be  made  throughout  the  Middle  Ages. 
Side  by  side  with  this  representation  of  the  human  form 
went  decorative  sculpture,  the  Byzantine  capitals,  for 
instance,  of  the  sixth  century — more  beautiful  than  those 
of  Greece,  infinitely  more  varied  and  full  of  life — these 
capitals  we  find  still  being  made  and  developed  at  Venice 
in  the  twelfth  century.  In  that  century  also  France  entered 
the  first  stage  of  her  great  development.  Need  I  remind 
you  of  the  Gothic  decorative  art  in  thirteenth-century 
France  and  England ;  or  of  the  great  French  statuary  ? 
**  Twice,"  says  Professor  Lethaby,  "  in  the  history  of  art 
has  sculpture  reached  a  mark  which  placed  it  apart  from 
that  of  all  other  periods  " — Greek  and  Gothic  ^ ;  to  which  I 
would  add  the  Italian  sculpture  from  the  thirteenth  century 
to  Michelangelo. 

1  Mediaeval  Art,  191 2,  p.  216. 

156 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

But  the  illusion  about  a  gap  has  this  amount  of  foundation. 
Between  the  fifth  century  and  the  tenth  the  whole  of  Europe 
(except  the  Eastern  Empire,  whose  turn  came  later)  was 
overrun  by  successive  hordes  of  barbarians.  They  were, 
indeed,  tamed,  converted,  civilised,  in  a  marvellous  way; 
but  before  their  conversion  they  were  giant  destroyers,  and, 
after  it,  they  required  some  centuries  of  education.  As  a 
result,  we  do  find,  especially  in  the  north-west,  art  almost 
as  base  sometimes  as  that  in  the  London  of  to-day. 

Up  to  the  year  looo,  art  was  either  Byzantine  or 
barbaric;  but  after  that  date  Europe — or  rather  the  patch 
of  free  Europe  outside  Moorish  Spain,  outside  the  still 
heathen  north-east,  and  the  Slav  line  where  Tatars  and 
Turks  were  later  to  get  dominion — that  patch  of  Europe, 
which  looks  small  enough  on  the  map,  was  to  settle  down 
and  have  peace  enough  to  express  itself.  We  forget  the 
lurid  centuries  in  which  our  forefathers  struggled  against 
an  all-prevailing  Bolshevism.  Well,  this  little  Western 
Europe  expressed  herself  quickly  enough — in  communes, 
in  free-cities,  in  guilds,  in  nationalities,  and  in  art.  Already 
in  985  the  Othonian  'Renaissance'  had  begun.  Mean- 
while, from  the  earliest  beginnings  of  Christian  education, 
the  art  of  Constantinople,  its  beautiful  ivories,  miniatures, 
enamels,  metal-work,  textiles,  had  never  ceased  to  pene- 
trate the  West,  like  rain,  causing  such  passing  efflorescences 
as  the  Ruthwell  and  Bewcastle  crosses  in  the  eighth  century, 
inspiring  men  like  Benedict  Biscop  in  the  seventh,  or  the 
artists  of  the  Carolingian  revival  in  the  ninth,  and  supplying 
the  models  which  led  the  men  of  the  Romanesque  period 
toward  the  perfection  of  Gothic  sculpture. 

All  the  time,  the  Christian  Church  had  been  no  enemy 
of  the  representation  of  the  human  form.  On  the  contrary 
the  Church  needed  this  representation  and  demanded  it  ; 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

for  without  this  representation  it  was  impossible  to  ex- 
press the  central  principles  of  Christianity;  and  therein  she 
differed  from  Islam,  as  Christian  art  always  has  differed 
from  the  purely  decorative  art  of  the  Muslim  peoples. 

I  have  mentioned  the  Church  in  order  to  restore  the 
balance  and  arrive  at  the  truth — not  to  encourage,  but 
rather  to  prevent  that  reaction  against  our  pseudo-classical 
grandfathers  which  would  exaggerate  the  virtues  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Nothing  is  more  exasperating,  indeed, 
than  the  attempt  to  make  ecclesiastical  capital  out  of  the 
art  of  the  thirteenth  century. 

There  were  doubtless  bishops  without  aesthetic  under- 
standing in  the  Middle  Ages,  as  there  are,  I  understand, 
to-day.  There  was  also  a  strong  ideal  of  asceticism  among 
the  monks;  yet  the  monks  covered  our  Europe  with  a 
*  white  mantle  of  churches '  in  the  Romanesque  period. 
Such  a  mighty  outburst  of  beauty  had  never  happened 
before  ;  and  their  monasteries  were  great  workshops — 
workshops  which  were  studios.  Yet  mediaeval  art  did  not 
reach  its  zenith  till  it  had  passed  out  of  monastic  control 
by  the  thirteenth  century  into  the  hands  of  the  burghers 
and  the  guilds.  But  it  was  still  Christian  art,  still  the 
expression  of  the  Christian  inspiration  :  the  sculpture  of 
French  Gothic,  of  Donatello  and  Michelangelo,  was  still 
the  art  of  the  Church.  For  the  Church  is  not  the  clergy, 
nor  is  it  bishops  and  popes :  it  is  the  people.  And  it  was 
the  people  then — men  to  whom  religion  was  indeed  a  great 
reality — but  cheery,  and  indeed  beery,  fellows  in  leather 
aprons,  who,  amid  all  the  wars  and  oppressions,  laughed 
and  thrived,  and  banded  themselves  together  in  their  crafts 
— in  Constantinople  many  centuries  earlier  than  in  the 
West.  The  towns  swarmed  with  these  workmen  who  hap- 
pened to  be  artists — these  artists  who  were  content  to  be 
158 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

workmen.  The  idea  that  their  interests  were  in  sadness 
and  suffering,  or  that  their  art  was  gaunt  and  emaciated, 
has  long  been  exploded.-^ 

IV 

Let  us  come  to  architecture.  It  is  the  fundamental  art. 
Without  it,  you  may  have  a  few  brilHant  men  painting 
pictures  for  a  few  brilHant  picture-dealers;  you  may  have 
many  profiteers  recognising  that  a  gilt  picture-frame  must 
have  something  in  it;  but  you  will  not  have  art  as  a  vital 
principle  of  life — you  will  not  find  the  people  seizing  a 
great  picture  and  carrying  it  in  triumphal  procession  down 
the  Strand.  Clever  artists  will  continue  to  arise,  both  in 
painting  and  sculpture,  and  a  few  discerning  people  will 
rejoice  in  them;  geniuses  will  break  through  from  time 
to  time — generally  under  intense  discouragement.  New 
schools  will  try  new  experiments,  and  be  intensely  bored 
with  the  experiments  of  the  schools  before  them.  But  you 
will  not  make  art  again  secure  and  inevitable,  as  it  always 
had  been,  everywhere  in  the  world,  before  the  Renaissance 
broke  the  tradition  and  expired  together  with  its  victim — 
you  will  not  establish  art  again  as  the  habit  of  mankind, 
until  you  set  men's  paths  about  with  beauty  again ;  and  this 
involves  two  things.  It  involves  architecture,  the  mightiest 
and  most  serious  of  the  arts,  and  costume,  the  lightest  and 
most  capricious — yes,  if  Pericles  had  worn  a  top-hat  and 

1  The  cultivation  of  false  pathos  appears  in  the  fourteenth  century, 
and  increases  with  the  decline  of  intellectual  leadership  in  the  Church. 
In  its  wake  follows  the  humanist  reaction,  but  also  the  macabre.  "  II 
semble,"  says  M.  Male  in  L'Art  Rcligieux  de  la  fin  du  Moyen  Age,  1908, 
p.  76,  "  que  desormais  le  mot  mysterieux,  le  mot  qui  contient  le  secret  du 
christianisme,  ne  soit  plus  '  aimer,'  mais  '  souffrir.'  "  The  absolute  reserve 
of  early  Christian  art  is  in  the  most  striking  contrast  with  the  morbid 
emphasis  on  the  Crucifixion  and  Passion  during  the  past  six  centuries. 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

spats,  where  would  Pheidias  have  been  ?  How  much  of 
the  prestige  of  our  ancient  universities  is  due  to  their 
architectural  beauty,  and  to  the  fact  that  in  the  academic 
habit  some  relics  of  mediaeval  costume  are  retained  ?  Yet 
I  notice  in  some  modern  universities  a  tendency  to  regard 
even  the  humble  minimum  of  a  black  gown  as  something 
to  be  discarded  as  much  as  possible,  because  it  happens  to 
be  both  convenient  and  graceful.  It  is  characteristic  of  our 
age  that  men  affect  to  despise  costume,  and  then  spend  much 
money,  care,  and  time  in  making  themselves  look  nattily 
ridiculous.  The  beaux  remain,  though  the  beauty  has  gone. 
But  until  the  streets  we  live  in,  and  even  the  men  who  walk 
about  in  them,  are  tolerable  to  the  vision,  our  eyes  will  not 
recover  from  their  distortion  and  become  normal  again. 

Fortunately,  I  need  not  take  up  your  time  with  plead- 
ing the  virtues  of  mediaeval  architecture.  That  battle  has 
been  long  won.  In  the  young  days  of  this  College,  when 
it  was  regarded  as  the  latest  echo  of  the  Parthenon, 
any  gathering  here  would  have  believed  that,  as  with 
painting  and  sculpture,  so  with  architecture,  there  had 
been  a  great  gap — say  between  the  Coliseum  and  St  Peter's 
at  Rome — a  gap  precariously  filled  with  the  barbarous 
litter  which  our  great-grandfathers  called  '  Gothic  ' — 
meaning  what  we  should  mean  by  the  word  '  Hun.'  That 
illusion  has  disappeared,  though  the  majority  of  our  pro- 
fessional architects  still  act  as  if  it  were  true. 

There  are,  however,  two  facts  about  mediaeval  architec- 
ture which  are,  I  think,  not  yet  quite  generally  realised. 

I.  Gothic  occupied  only  some  three  or  four  centuries 
out  of  our  period  of  a  thousand  years,  and  that  only  in 
Western  Europe.  The  East  was  untouched  by  it;  in 
Rome  it  was  a  foreign  fashion  which  never  seriously  inter- 
rupted Romanesque  work;  even  North  Italy  remained  on 
1 60 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

the  whole  a  land  of  basilican  and  Romanesque  buildings. 
Europe  between  the  fifth  century  and  the  fifteenth  had 
five  great  kinds  of  architecture,  Basilican,  Byzantine,  and 
Byzantinesque,^  Romanesque,  and  Gothic,  and  within  these 
main  styles  an  unprecedented  number  of  varieties  which 
testify  to  their  amazing  vitality.  These  styles  include 
nearly  all  the  greatest  buildings  in  the  world ;  they  include 
what  most  artists  agree  to  call  the  greatest  of  all — St  Sofia 
at  Constantinople,  where  all  the  problems  of  architecture 
were  solved  into  perfection  at  the  beginning  of  the  Middle 
Ages;  they  include  the  loveliest  and  most  graceful  of  the 
basilicas  from  the  fifth  century  to  the  eleventh — Ravenna, 
Torcello,  Fiesole ;  they  include  the  Byzantine  of  Venice 
and  Aquitaine;  the  splendid  Romanesque  schools  of  Pisa, 
Florence,  and  Sicily;  the  cluster  of  great  churches  along 
the  Rhine  and  in  Lombardy;  the  several  mighty  schools 
of  France,  and  masterpieces  like  our  own  Durham.  And 
these  classes  of  architecture  culminated  from  the  end  of 
the  twelfth  century  in  our  Western  Gothic — reaching, 
shall  we  say,  to  the  crown  of  Beauvais — an  architecture  so 
wonderful  that  it  has  about  it  something  which  we  moderns, 
with  all  our  admiration,  have  not  been  able  even  to  see^  as 
our  attempts  at  restoration  or  revival  so  painfully  testify. 

2.  All  mediaeval  architecture  has  this  common  charac- 
teristic— it  is  free.  Compared  with  it,  the  art  of  other 
periods  is  as  crystals  are  to  plants.  Ancient  Roman  archi- 
tecture had  indeed  partly  extricated  itself  from  the  close 
limitations  of  ancient  Greece :  it  had  introduced  the  arch, 
but,  excepting  in  its  aqueducts  and  other  works  of  utility 
(which  form  the  real  greatness  of  Roman  architecture), 
it  fails  between  two  incompatible  principles — that  of  the 
lintel   which   takes   pressure   direct   and   that   of  the   arch 

1  Cattaneo's  word,  '  Italo-Byzantine,'  is  unnecessarily  ugly. 

L  l6l 


MEDIv^VAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

which  spreads  the  pressure :  its  columns  and  entablatures 
are  therefore  usually  only  a  veneer.  Roman  ornament, 
also,  is  seldom  free  from  heaviness  and  vulgarity;  Roman 
domes  and  vaults  are  giant  lids  of  concrete :  it  was  reserved 
to  the  architects  of  St  Sofia  to  invent  the  true  dome.  In 
architecture,  science  is  always  struggling  with  art ;  and  the 
ultimate  perfection  is  only  obtained  when  the  two  are 
reconciled,  as  they  are  in  St  Sofia,  as  they  are  in  the  final 
structural  triumphs  of  Gothic. 

The  architects  throughout  the  Middle  Ages  worked  as 
free  men,  that  is  to  say,  as  real  artists.  They  were  never 
enslaved,  as  we  are  to-day,  by  any  superstition  about  correct 
Vitruvian  orders.  Look  at  the  capitals  of  Ravenna, 
Salonica,  Constantinople,  and  Venice,  of  French  Roman- 
esque and  English  Gothic;  they  invented  for  their  new 
necessities  new  capitals,  of  infinite  variety.  They  did  this 
because,  without  ever  breaking  from  the  past,  they  used 
the  past  to  make  the  present.  They  lived  and  grew,  they 
dared,  they  experimented ;  their  art  was  dynamic ;  in  every 
age,  in  every  province,  they  were  themselves,  and  never  the 
shadow  of  something  that  had  once  lived  and  was  dead. 
As  Sir  Thomas  Jackson  says,  **  Byzantine  and  Romanesque 
art  was  in  fact  a  revulsion  from  convention  to  the  unaffected 
expression  of  natural  law  and  methods  of  construction  " ; 
and  he  adds  (too  indulgently)  that  some  of  us,  "  the  strict 
classic  "  purists,  *'  value  consistent  obedience  to  authority 
and  precedent,  to  strict  canons  of  orthodoxy,  correctness, 
and  propriety,  according  to  certain  accepted  formulas.**^ 
They  do,  indeed  1  But  this  is  not  art.  It  is  the  negation 
of  art,  the  corpse  of  art. 

And  how  was  architecture  thus  killed  ?     It  was  killed 

1  T.  G.  Jackson,  R.A.,  Byzaniine  and  Romanesque  Architecture,  ii,  268 
(1913)- 
162 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

by  what  is  called  the  Renaissance.  Men  discovered  that 
a  certain  Roman  named  Vitruvius  had  laid  down  certain 
"canons  of  orthodoxy,  correctness,  and  propriety";  and 
this  became  to  them  a  gospel.  Modern  scholars  have 
discovered  that  Vitruvius  was  not  an  architect  at  all,  but 
just  a  literary  gentleman,  with  an  atrociously  obscure  style, 
who  chatted  about  architecture.  But  he  was  set  up  as  the 
evangelist,  infallible  for  all  time :  nothing  that  could  not 
be  read  therein  or  proved  thereby  was  henceforward  to 
be  orthodox.  Here,  as  in  the  other  arts,  great  men  did 
greatly  within  the  formulas :  the  spirit  of  the  Middle  Ages 
did  not  die  at  once — it  lived,  for  instance,  still  in  Chris- 
topher Wren  and  his  school,  as  the  spire  of  St  Mary-le- 
Strand,  and  dozens  of  other  mediaeval  spires  with  classical 
detail,  bear  witness. 

But  a  fatal  blow  had  been  struck  at  architecture.  It  had 
become  mimetic — so  mimetic  that  when  the  Gothic  enthu- 
siasm arose  in  the  nineteenth  century  the  revivalists  could 
not  free  themselves  from  the  central  error  of  the  Renaissance. 
They  also  were  mimes,  they  tried  to  capture  the  Gothic 
spirit  with  rule  and  measure.  They  imitated  Gothic  in 
everything  but  this — that  Gothic  is  not  an  imitation.  They 
were  mediaeval  in  everything  except  in  being  mediasval. 
The  Gothic  revival  was  the  last  stage  of  the  Renaissance, 
and  the  worst.     For  art  is  life:  it  is  not  revival. 

At  the  present  moment  London,  and  the  world,  is 
thickly  strewn  with  shams,  Roman  shams,  Greek  shams, 
Gothic  shams — there  was  even  an  awful  moment  of 
Venetian  shams — and  now  Roman  shams  again.  When- 
ever we  try  to  be  grand,  we  become  dull.  Our  only  living 
architecture — and  it  is  worthy  to  be  considered  with  that 
of  any  age — is  that  of  our  country  cottages  and  countr)' 
houses;    because    here    wc    build    for    our    comfort    and 

163 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

convenience,  we  build  what  we  like  and  not  what  we  are  told 
we  ought  to  like,  and  we  give  no  shadow  of  thought  to  the 
pages  of  Vitruvius — or  of  Pugin.  Yes,  here  in  our  beauti- 
ful country  homes  we  are  truly  Gothic;  here  we  are  really 
mediaeval,  and  here  the  spirit  of  the  Middle  Ages  does 
contribute  to  our  own  time.  May  new  schools  of  archi- 
tecture arise  now  and  be  mediseval  altogether,  since  to  be 
truly  mediaeval  is  to  be  entirely  modern  ! 

I  have  spoken  of  the  Renaissance  as  the  reaction  of  the 
pundit  upon  art,  and  the  consequent  destruction  of  the  free 
mediaeval  spirit.  The  word,  indeed,  has  too  many  mean- 
ings; and  I  do  not  mean  the  new  learning,  nor  the  partial 
emancipation  of  the  intellect  from  certain  phases  of  tradition 
and  authority.  I  mean  simply  that  trammelling  of  intuition 
which  accompanied  it,  which  established  a  freezing  scholas- 
ticism in  the  studio  and  put  young  and  old  alike  under 
the  rule  of  pedantic  schoolmasters.  It  is  this  tyranny  of 
the  '  correct  '  in  art  that  is  the  reason  for  the  universal 
absence  of  beauty  in  the  modern  world  which  we  all  recog- 
nise and  deplore. 

V 

But,  alas!  if  we  climb  out  of  our  pedantry  in  architecture, 
as  we  have  long  done  in  painting,  as  we  are  doing  in 
sculpture,  there  will  still  be  one  thing  lacking.  Before  I 
mention  it,  I  would  ask  you  to  add  to  architecture  ornament, 
and  the  various  minor  arts  and  crafts  which  architecture 
encloses  and  protects. 

The  one  thing  lacking  would  be  democracy — to  use  the 
only  word  we  have  got.  Briefly,  that  interruption  of 
tradition  which  we  call  the  Renaissance  was,  as  we  say 
nowadays,  undemocratic :  it  was  the  conscious,  artificial 
164 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

work  of  a  small  class  of  grammarians,  princes,  and  rich 
merchants.  It  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  people :  it 
robbed  the  people  of  their  art,  till  artists  had  to  be  the  para- 
sites of  the  rich,  and  the  people  relapsed  into  barbarism. 
The  art  of  succeeding  ages,  beautiful  as  it  has  often  been, 
has  been  the  art  of  the  drawing-room,  not  of  the  street; 
and  the  parish  church  has  long  ceased  to  be  what  it  once 
was,  the  centre  of  beauty  in  every  little  village,  the  living 
home  (not  the  mere  museum)  of  an  exquisite  and  popular 
art.  Of  course,  parish  halls  might  have  taken  the  place 
of  parish  churches ;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  they  did  not. 
The  people  of  Europe  have  had  their  art  stolen  from  them 
by  the  rich;  and  to-day  there  is  hardly  a  scintilla  of  the 
divine  understanding  left  among  them. 

Now,  I  would  put  it  to  you  as  an  axiom  that  the  paralysis 
of  art  among  the  people  creeps  upward  to  the  whole  body ; 
that  an  art  which  is  the  art  of  a  class  must  always  be  more 
or  less  artificial ;  and  that  you  cannot  have  a  great,  living, 
and  stable  art,  growing  steadily  from  age  to  age,  unless  it 
is  shared  by  all  the  nation,  loved  in  all  the  nation,  recruited 
from  every  class  of  the  nation.  And  I  would  suggest  to 
you  that  the  present  instability  of  our  living  art  of  painting, 
its  somewhat  reckless  experiments,  its  abiding  discontent, 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  it  is  not  rooted  in  the  common  life 
of  Europe. 

This,  then,  is  the  second  great  contribution  that  I  desire 
from  the  Middle  Ages  to  the  art  of  to-day :  the  first  was 
liberty,  the  second  is  life.      Indeed,  they  are  one. 

Now  the  art  of  the  Middle  Ages  comes  between  an 
art  resting  on  slavery,  which  we  call  classical,  and  an  art 
resting  on  exploitation,  which  has  been  the  art  of  recent 
centuries.  With  all  its  crimes,  ignorances,  oppressions, 
with  all  its  still  unsubdued  savagery,  the  mediaeval  period 

165 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

was,  after  all,  an  age  of  gradual  emancipation,  a  period 
during  which  the  shackles  of  slavery  and  serfdom  were 
falling  away,  and  workmen  were  learning  to  respect  them- 
selves and  .0  combine.  Wherever  and  whenever  society 
was  sufficiently  settled,  combine  they  did;  and  wherever 
their  trade  involved  the  making  of  permanent  things, 
we  find  them  to  be  craftsmen,  artists  in  their  degree — and 
not  less  artistic  than  the  overlords,  but  more.  Certainly 
the  common  folk  of  the  Middle  Ages  loved  the  art  which 
was  created  around  them,  and  shared  in  its  beauty.  We 
know  this  best  of  that  period  which  to  most  artists  is  the 
Middle  Ages,  the  second  half,  when  the  worst  disturbances 
were  over,  and  society  had  a  chance  of  expressing  itself. 
Romanesque  architecture  (and  therefore,  of  course,  Gothic, 
its  derivative),  as  Choisy  and  Enlart  have  shown,  was  due 
to  the  abolition  of  slavery — briefly,  because,  in  the  absence 
of  slave  labour,  smaller  stones  had  to  be  used.^  In  the 
eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries  the  communes  arose,  city 
after  city  became  free,  the  craft-guilds  were  formed.  Gothic 
art  sprang  from  Romanesque,  and  contemporaneously  there 
arose  the  first  assertions  of  nationality  and  the  recognition 
of  public  liberty.  Gothic  is  the  result  of  the  democratic 
movement  in  the  twelfth  century,  and  in  Gothic,  as  Ruskin 
has  shown  in  that  great  chapter,  "  The  Nature  of  Gothic,"  ^ 
men  had  pleasure  in  their  work,  and  therefore  did  not  look 
to  wealth  as  the  only  means  of  pleasure. 

The  never-ceasing  action,  the  undying  strain  of  thrust 
and  counter-thrust  which  lies  hidden  under  the  quiet  grey 

^  Auguste  Choisy,  Histoire  de  f  Architecture,  ii,  142-5.  Cf.  Camille 
Enlart,  in  Histoire  de  I'Art,  i,  443  (A.  Michel,  1905). 

»  Stones  of  Venice,  1886,  ii,  15 1-23 1,  especially  p,  163.  I  venture  to 
think  that  the  time  has  come  for  us  to  repudiate  that  depreciation  of  the 
art-writings  of  Ruskin,  which  was  brought  about  by  the  next  generation  of 
writers,  men  who  seldom  reached  his  level  of  intelligence  and  discernment. 

166 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

stones  of  those  soaring  cathedrals,  was  indeed  itself  the 
assertion  of  freedom,  as  it  was  of  the  strength  of  those 
masons  who  so  unconcernedly  handled  the  dangerous 
powers  they  were  unloosing.  There  were  no  *  architects  ' 
in  those  days,  only  guilds  of  masons,  with  a  master-mason, 
who  had  worked  his  way  up,  to  direct  the  building,  at 
which  he  had  started,  perhaps,  as  a  poor  apprentice.  No 
incitement  to  pedantry  there  !  And  the  enormous  output 
of  the  thirteenth  century  rested  on  a  great  popular  enthu- 
siasm. Gothic  was  not  the  work  of  the  monks,  as  Northern 
Romanesque  had  often  been :  it  was  the  work  of  the  people, 
of  the  peasants  and  the  burghers,  of  the  guilds ;  and  the 
sculpture,  the  wrought  metal,  the  glorious  carved  screens 
which  astonish  us  to-day  in  our  remote  country  places, 
were  the  work  of  the  village  mason,  the  village  carpenter, 
the  village  blacksmith. 

In  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries  there  was  already 
a  passion  for  building  and  for  all  the  arts  that  go  with 
architecture — leading  incidentally  in  the  twelfth  to  the 
invention  of  a  new  art  of  painting,  the  wonderful  art  of 
painting  glass  windows.  Men  did  not  build  from  neces- 
sity— there  were  on  the  whole  plenty  of  churches  already : 
they  built  because  they  had  a  passion  for  building  and 
for  the  daughter  arts;  and  that  passion  was  certainly  not 
the  sentiment  of  any  one  rich  or  cultured  class.  In  the 
thirteenth  century  nearly  every  important  town  was  again 
at  work  upon  a  gigantic  cathedral — and  in  the  fourteenth 
or  fifteenth — though  hardly  a  city  of  Europe  then  had  a 
population  of  more  than  twenty  thousand  souls.  And, 
with  the  building,  there  went  on  rapturously  every  form 
of  painting,  sculpture,  metal-work,  and  of  all  the  crafts, 
now  raised  to  the  highest  point  of  delicacy  and  loveliness. 
This  was  not  monastic,  it  was  not  merely  clerical;  it  was 

I  67 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

civic,  it  was  the  self-expression  of  simple  burghers  and 
peasants  and  artisans ;  and  the  pulse  of  the  people  beat  so 
truly  that  the  expression  varied  in  each  nation,  nay,  in  each 
province  of  countries  like  France  and  Italy. 

By  contrast  I  have  used  the  word  *  exploitation  *  of  the 
modern  period.      We  remember  our  own  *  Great  Pillage  ' 
in  the  reign  of  Edward  VI,  which  was  an  act  of  vandalism 
against  art,  as  well  as  the  robbery  of  the  poor  by  the  rich, 
and  the  destruction  of  workmen's  unions;  we  remember 
the  enslavement   of  Italy;   we   remember  what   happened 
to  Germany  in  the  Thirty  Years  War;  we  remember  the 
social   conditions   of  France   before   the   Revolution;    and 
Mr  and  Mrs  Hammond  have  reminded  us  lately,  with  an 
abundance  of  new  illustration,  of  the  bitter  serfdom  of  the 
English  artisan  a  hundred  years  ago.      Still,  fifty  years  ago 
there  remained  the  resulting  ignorance,  and  what  Mr  Tawney 
calls  **  an    almost   animal   incapacity   for   responsibility."  ^ 
We  know,  indeed,  that  in  many  other  ways  the  world  has 
progressed   enormously   during   the  modern  period.      We 
do  not  wish  to  be  back  in  the  Middle  Ages ;  but  I  submit 
that,  in  the  matter  of  art,  civilisation  has  drifted  from  its 
moorings,  and  that  those  moorings  are,  as  William  Morris 
rightly  taught,  in  labour — the  freedom  of  the  workman  to 
realise  himself,  to  express  himself  in  his  work  and  to  rejoice 
in  it.      Many  are  annoyed  at  the  labour  unrest  of  to-day; 
but  at  the  bottom  of  it  is  an  impulse  of  the  utmost  promise 
— the  desire  of  labour  for  its  share  of  human  recognition 
and  human  responsibility.     If,  in  the  last  generation,  as 
Mr  Arnold  Bennett  says  of  the  art  museum  at  Copenhagen, 
people  "  were  never  guilty  of  inadvertence.      Their  instinct 
against  beauty  in   any  form  was  unerring,"^  we  have  to 

1  R.  J.  Tawney,  The  Sickness  of  an  Acquisitive  Society,  p.  71  (1920). 
•  Arnold  Bennett,  The  Log  of  the  Velsa,  pp.  129-30. 

168 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

remember  that  beauty  is  part  of  the  Divine  Absolute,  and 
that  in  this  as  in  other  things  we  cannot  serve  God  and 
Mammon. 

Of  the  great  cathedrals  Professor  Lethaby  says:  "  They 
are  more  than  buildings.  .  .  .  The  work  of  a  man,  a  man 
may  understand ;  but  these  are  the  work  of  ages,  of  nations. 
.  ,  .  Nothing  is  marked,  nothing  is  clever,  nothing  is 
individual  nor  thrust  forward  as  artistic;  they  are  serene, 
masterly,  non-personal,  like  works  of  nature — indeed,  they 
are  such,  natural  manifestations  of  the  minds  of  men 
working  under  the  impulse  of  a  noble  idea."  Their  use 
"  had  been  perfected  by  the  daily  practice  of  a  thousand 
years,  and  was  linked  to  a  music  that  belonged  to  it  as 
the  blast  of  trumpets  belongs  to  war.  All  were  parts  of 
a  marvellous  drama,  the  ceremonial  life  of  a  people."  ^ 

Of  the  towns  themselves  one  need  hardly  speak.  A 
few  have  in  part  survived  the  Vandals  of  our  modern  era, 
to  show  us  in  what  magic  streets  the  feet  of  our  forefathers 
used  to  walk — Bruges,  Domfront,  Estavayer,  Rothenburg, 
some  towns  in  the  Riviera,  in  Spain,  Italy,  the  Balkans. 
Their  beauty  is  confounding.  Modern  designers,  in  our 
good,  new  zeal  for  town-planning,  are  trying  to  catch  some 
portion  of  their  spirit — some  have  even  tried  to  discover  a 
hidden  scientific  formula  in  those  turns  and  curves,  those 
sudden  breaks,  and  happy  groupings  of  perfect  gables, 
walls,  turrets,  spires,  bridges,  which  are  but  the  expression 
of  an  unerring  instinct  for  that  which  is  fit  and  beautiful. 

Such  towns  as  these  had  each  its  craft-guilds ;  and  these 
guilds  were  the  universities  of  art.  When  the  workman 
sent  in  his  'masterpiece'  for  examination,  he  became,  if 
it  was  passed,  literally  a  master  of  his  art.  There  were 
graduates  in  art,  as  well  as  in  'arts,'  under  that  system; 

1  W.  R.  Lethaby,  Medtcez'al  Art,  pp.  142-4  (191  2). 

169 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

and  everyone  recognised  the  master's  worth,  the  honour 
of  his  rough  hands.  To-day,  art  is  a  frill  upon  the  edges 
of  life ;  it  was  then  the  stuff  of  life  itself.  It  was  then  no 
factitious  adjunct  to  work,  but  the  very  manner  of  work, 
and  the  impulse. 

We  have  seen  our  civic  beauty  fallen  to  ruins.  In  the 
fourteenth  century  men  sought  for  municipal  office  to 
promote  the  utmost  development  of  communal  life,  to 
increase  the  municipal  magnificence.  To-day,  the  best  of 
those  who  stand  for  election  seek  rather  for  the  removal 
of  municipal  degradation :  they  no  longer  take  office  in  the 
local  council  '*  because  they  are  proud  of  their  city,  but 
because  they  are  ashamed  of  it." 

We  cannot  copy  the  Middle  Ages — neither  their  guilds 
nor  their  cities,  nor  their  Church,  nor  their  art ;  but  by 
ceasing  to  copy  and  by  making  art  the  friend  of  the  poor 
and  not  the  mere  lacquey  of  the  rich,  we  can  recover  the 
old  spirit,  which  is  the  eternal  spirit  of  humanity,  and 
therefore  will  most  surely  arise  again 

feeling  out  of  sight 
For  the  ends  of  Being  and  ideal  Grace. 


VI 

The  spirit  of  ancient  Greek  art  was  flowing  through 
Europe  during  the  Middle  Ages;  but  it  had  already 
changed  and  become  Hellenistic,  and  it  was  changed  again 
into  a  deeper  wisdom  and  a  new  power  by  the  spirit  of 
Christendom.  Across  the  history  of  art  during  the  first 
half  of  the  mediaeval  period  lay  the  shadow  of  the  barbarian 
invaders.  Other  savage  incursions  had  destroyed  what 
they  overthrew;  but  the  power  which  had  now  come  into 
170 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

the  world  was  deathless :  Christian  civilisation  turned  and 
subdued  the  conquerors,  transmuting  their  strength  into 
sweetness.  Of  all  this,  the  mediaeval  art  of  Europe  was 
the  expression ;  to  this  it  owed  its  infinite  variety  and  its 
ultimate  mastery  of  every  human  craft,  including  that  of 
melody  in  music,  and  above  all  its  spiritual  depth.  The 
subject  of  music  would  need  another  lecture,  like  that  of 
poetry;  but  we  will  not  forget  that  the  unrivalled  acoustic 
properties  of  the  great  mediaeval  churches  were  not  thrown 
away :  music  of  singular  beauty  existed  all  the  time,  and 
developed,  though  more  slowly.  Music  is  the  most 
spiritual  of  the  arts ;  and  it  is  spirituality  that  gives  to  the 
whole  realm  of  European  mediaeval  art,  overwhelmingly 
vaster  in  mere  production  than  any  other,  its  supreme 
mark  of  greatness.  For  mediaeval  art  compares  with  all 
other  as  the  art  of  more  spiritual  beings,  of  men  who  believe 
that  they  are  but  little  lower  than  the  angels,  of  men  who 
are  always  striving  after  something  which  is  beyond  them 
in  the  eternal  reality  of  the  spirit.  It  is  tremulous  with 
aspiration,  humble  even  in  its  majesty.  The  art  of  ancient 
Greece  is,  after  all,  only  young  with  the  physical  perfection 
of  youth,  its  satisfaction  with  what  life  can  give.  In  another 
sense  it  is  old  with  the  finality  of  age.  The  statues  of  the 
great  period  of  Greek  sculpture  express  the  beauty  of  the 
human  form  and  of  glorious  drapery:  their  faces  are  often 
the  faces  of  very  noble  animals.  Let  it  be  admitted — for  we 
have  been  a  little  uncritical  about  classical  art,  our  Bible, 
our  Old  Testament — they  sometimes  wholly  lack  expression. 
But  the  statues  and  paintings  of  the  Middle  Ages  give  us 
human  beings  with  souls — men  like  ourselves,  heavy  with 
thought,  bright  with  hope,  tender  with  love,  perturbed  by 
some  intensity  of  vision.  A  soul  has  crept  into  the  marble. 
And   when    Michelangelo   seems   to    be   reviving   the   old 

171 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

classical  tradition,  he  remains  a  child  of  the  Middle 
Ages :  the  soul  cannot  be  banished — in  the  words  of  his 
famous  sonnet — 

Non  ha  rottimo  artista  alcun  concetto 
Ch'un  marmo  solo  in  se  non  circonscriva 
Col  suo  soverchio,  e  sola  a  quello  arriva 
La  man  che  obbedisce  all'intelletto. 

His  paintings  and  his  statues  are  eloquent  beyond  the 
capacities  of  speech ;  they  seem  to  groan  and  travail  with 
strivings  that  cannot  be  uttered — even  by  his  supreme 
genius. 

So  the  art  of  the  Middle  Ages  is  really  the  art  of 
youth.  It  has  no  finality,  because  that  which  it  expresses 
cannot  ever  be  finished.  It  lives  with  unmeasured  poten- 
tialities still  before  it.  Until  the  Renaissance,  and  men's 
subsequent  concentration  upon  commerce  and  science,  it 
seldom  rested  in  the  West,  but  grew  from  one  stage  to 
another — as  in  our  still  living  arts— of  painting,  and  music, 
poetry,  and  the  drama — we  still  move  and  change  and 
grow. 

The  Middle  Ages  were  the  age  of  youth.  I  do  not 
mean  merely  of  young  nations,  but  of  men  who  were 
building  up  the  future  and  had  unlimited  development 
before  them.  It  was  our  youth,  and  we  are  growing  from 
it.  In  so  far  as  our  art  lives — the  art  of  our  intelligentsia — 
it  is  growing  from  that  stem.  In  so  far  as  it  is  dead,  it  is 
in  those  forms  of  art  which  have  ignored  their  own  parent- 
age, such  as  architecture,  ornament,  the  crafts,  and  much 
sculpture,  and  have  tried  to  form  themselves  from  ancient 
models  in  the  pedantry  of  the  schools.  They  are  cut  off 
from  the  stem,  and  they  languish.  But  painting,  like 
music  and  poetry,  has  gone  on  without  a  break  and  is  alive 
to-day. 
172 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

Over  four  centuries  have  passed  since  the  real  severance 
began  ;  but  the  mediasval  tradition  still  lived  in  England 
three  centuries  ago,  still  lived  unfashionably  among  the 
people  two  centuries  ago,  has  lingered  last  of  all  in  folk- 
song. It  is  not  a  very  long  period ;  and  men  have  risen  to 
vast  achievements  in  other  spheres,  though  they  have  been 
more  concerned  during  it  with  truth,  and  some  forms  of 
goodness,  than  with  beauty.  But  the  severance  has  never 
been  complete :  the  sap  has  never  ceased  to  flow :  there  is 
no  break  between  the  mosaics  of  Ravenna  and  the  war- 
pictures  of  Mr  Rothenstein.  Let  us  take  heart.  We  are 
the  heirs  of  those  old  craftsmen.  They  have  left  us  the 
next  stage  of  their  work  to  do,  and  they  have  shown  us 
how  to  do  it.  The  nineteenth  century  made  the  world 
ugly  and  debased.     We  can  still  make  it  beautiful  again. 

Percy  Dearmer 


173 


VI 

THE  MIDDLE  AGES  IN  THE  LINEAGE 
OF  ENGLISH  POETRY 

I 

MY  theme  is  English  literature  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  some  few  salient  features  in  its  relation  to  the 
more  modern  periods.  There  is  a  growing  ten- 
dency at  present  to  disparage  the  literature  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  Indeed,  the  farther  off  these  Middle  Ages  happen 
to  -be,  the  more  severe  is  the  disparagement.  To  my 
mind,  the  perspective  of  English  literature  is  often  alto- 
gether distorted,  because  the  relationship  of  Early  English 
to  later  literature,  and  the  component  elements  of  the 
literature  of  the  Middle  Ages,  are  not  clearly  understood. 
One  of  the  main  causes  of  this  attitude  of  some  critics  and 
historians  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  literature  of  England 
goes  back  to  a  far-off  age,  long  before  the  Norman  Conquest, 
and  that  in  consequence  its  language  is  so  archaic  that  it 
cannot  be  readily  understood  without  careful  study. 

Chaucer's  spelling  may  be  bad  enough,  yet  he  can  be 
read  without  much  difficulty ;  but  in  the  case  of  Chaucer's 
predecessors  by  some  five  or  six  hundred  years  it  is  not 
merely  a  matter  of  spelling — the  language  itself  seems 
utterly  different,  with  its  strange  vocabulary,  syntax,  and 

^  Cp.  Sir  A.  Quiller-Couch,  "The  Lineage  of  English  Literature"  and 
other  chapters,  in  Studies  in  Literature.  First  and  Second  Series.  Cambridge 
University  Press. 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

grammar.  I  fear  that  one  has  often  to  fight  against  what 
is  tantamount  to  a  plea  for  ignorance.  Because  the 
ancient  literature  of  England  can  be  traced  so  far  back, 
and  because  its  language  is  so  archaic  as  to  necessitate 
serious  study,  it  is  dismissed  as  unworthy  of  consideration. 
The  main  object  of  my  observations  will  be  to  dispel,  if 
possible,  some  of  these  errors  in  respect  of  the  place  of 
older  English  literature,  and  of  poetry  in  particular,  in 
the  lineage  of  our  literature  from  the  period  of  Chaucer 
to  more  modern  times. 

The  term  *  Middle  Ages  *  is  vague  indeed.  Writers 
in  the  eighteenth  century  would  comprehensively  describe 
previous  ages,  including  even  some  part  of  the  Elizabethan 
age,  by  the  convenient  epithet  *  Gothic  ' — by  which  term 
was  meant  what  was  opposed  to  classical,  what  was  rugged, 
what  was  well-nigh  barbarous.  The  thirteenth  and  four- 
teenth centuries  are  generally  called  up  to  mind  when  one 
speaks  of  the  Middle  Ages  with  reference  to  English 
literature;  but  there  were  the  earlier  Middle  Ages,  the 
so-called  Dark  Ages,  centuries  before  the  Norman  Con- 
quest, a  period  of  no  little  interest  for  students  of  English 
literature.  It  is  this  Old  English  period  which  is  more 
particularly  singled  out  for  the  disparagement  to  which  I 
have  referred.  Yet  the  extant  remains  of  this  literature 
from  the  seventh  to  the  eleventh  century  are  striking  mani- 
festations of  the  genius  of  Old  England  in  its  strength  and 
its  simplicity,  before  the  later  alien  elements  had  become 
infused.  We  are  able  to  judge  therefrom  the  spirit  of 
that  old  English  folk  to  whom  are  due  not  only  the  basic 
elements  of  English  speech,  but  also  the  foundations 
of  English  institutional  life,  and  much  that  is  most 
characteristic  in  English  ideals. 

What  do  we  discover  from  a  rapid  survey  of  this  literature 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

of  the  early  Middle  Ages  ?  We  are  not  confronted  with 
the  rude  beginnings,  the  rough  scaffolding,  on  which  a 
noble  structure  was  to  be  built  up.  We  see  rather  a 
finished  effort  of  a  special  type,  the  culmination  of  a  long 
previous  period  of  development,  on  special  lines  and  with 
marked  characteristics.  In  the  productions  of  the  Anglian 
poets  of  the  eighth  century  we  have  a  poetry  remarkable 
for  a  certain  stateliness,  from  which  is  absent  what  is  uncouth 
or  rudimentary.  It  is  marked,  too,  by  a  high  seriousness, 
as  though  the  poets  felt  that  the  purpose  of  their  art 
was  to  edify  and  to  instruct.  Indeed,  this  hall-mark 
of  earnestness  often  testifies  to  something  deeper  in  spirit 
than  can  find  expression  in  form.  In  the  heroic  poetry 
of  this  age  the  minstrel  held  up  a  mirror  of  heroic  life, 
showing  how  a  young  warrior  should  behave,  how  he  should 
comport  himself,  how  he  should  regard  life  as  of  no  value 
when  honour  was  at  stake.  The  burden  of  Beowulf  is 
that  "  death  is  better  than  a  life  of  reproach."  It  is  not 
only  in  the  Christian  poetry  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  that  we 
find  the  fine  note  of  seriousness.  True,  Beowulf  when 
compared  with  the  Odyssey^  may  easily  invite  disparage- 
ment, but  it  is  surely  a  strange  attitude  for  those  who  deal 
with  the  history  of  English  literature  to  argue  that  because 
the  Teutonic  heroic  poem  is  altogether  inferior  to  the 
Greek  epic,  it  is  therefore  of  no  value  whatsoever  in  the 
pedigree  of  English  poetry.  Esthetic  consideration  is 
one  thing;  the  right  appraising  of  a  document  in  genealogy 
is  apart  from  aesthetic  consideration.  At  all  events,  the 
business  of  the  critic  is  to  attempt  to  understand  why  and 
in  what  respects  the  Teutonic  genius  differs  from  the 
more  glorious  genius  of  Greece.  If  the  search  is  for 
enchantment,  one  must  look  elsewhere  than  among  the 
remains  of  English  poetry  of  pre-Conquest  times.  In  tone 
176 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

and  spirit  this  poetry  is  severely  epic.  It  calls  for  no  apology, 
but  it  demands  study.  From  the  seventh  to  the  early  part 
of  the  ninth  century,  until  under  King  Alfred  the  centre 
of  literary  activity  passed  from  Anglia  to  Wessex,  Anglian 
poets  produced  work  well  worthy  of  the  recognition  that 
should  be  given  to  some  notable  achievement  preserved 
miraculously  from  ancient  days  to  our  own  time. 

II 

Anglo-Saxon  civilisation  was  not  suddenly  put  an  end 
to  by  the  Norman  Conquest,  though  by  that  time  it  had 
come  to  its  full  development,  and  was  passing  into  its 
decline.  It  is  true  that  toward  the  end  of  that  period  the 
English  muse  had  become  anaemic  and  weak;  she  needed 
new  strength,  new  forces  of  vitality. 

Let  us  turn  to  the  fourteenth  century.  During  the 
second  half  of  the  century  the  arresting  figure  of  Chaucer 
claims  our  first  attention.  Born  in  London,  associated 
from  his  youth  with  the  brilliant  court  of  Edward  III  and 
the  higher  social  life  of  his  time,  Chaucer  was  the  disciple 
of  the  gracious  poets  of  France.  Finding  nothing  to 
quicken  his  poetic  sense  in  contemporary  or  earlier  English 
poetry,  he  turned  to  France  and  set  himself  the  congenial 
task  of  bringing  into  native  English  the  measures,  the 
inspiration,  the  charm  and  delicacy  of  the  French  poets, 
with  their  joyance,  picturesqueness,  and  delight  in  dreams 
of  beauty.  The  magic  of  the  Romaunt  of  the  Rose^  and  of 
the  school  of  poets  under  the  spell  of  that  Poets'  Bible  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  must  have  won  his  heart  in  his  boyhood. 
When  he  had  tarried  long  enough  in  this  Temple  of  Glass, 
he  turned  elsewhere,  and  dwelt  with  the  greater  intellectual 
forces  of  Italy.     Dante,  Petrarch,  and  Boccaccio,  through 

M  177 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

Chaucer,  became  part  of  English  literary  tradition.  Having 
learnt  what  he  could  from  these  mighty  patriarchs  of 
Humanism,  Chaucer  discovered  the  full  strength  of  his 
own  genius  as  the  inimitable  story-teller  in  verse.  His 
pre-eminence  as  poet  was  acclaimed  in  his  own  time,  and 
through  the  centuries  to  our  own  day  he  has  stood  forth 
with  undiminished  fame. 

From  the  historical  point  of  view,  as  Tennyson  well 
put  it,  Chaucer  "  preluded  .  .  .  the  spacious  days  of 
great  Elizabeth."  He  is  the  forward  link  in  the  lineage  of 
English  literature.  In  the  first  place,  he  was  the  poet  of 
London,  the  centre  of  the  social  life  of  his  time — the  poet 
of  the  East  Midland  district  of  England.  His  greatness 
obscured  the  position  of  those  of  his  contemporaries  who 
belonged  to  more  provincial  parts  of  England,  and  who 
could  not  escape  the  oblivion  that  overtakes  mere  local 
fame.  The  place  of  these  poets  in  the  perspective  of 
English  literature  it  is  my  purpose  to  emphasise. 

Along  the  Welsh  Marches,  up  to  Lancashire  and 
Westmorland,  as  in  many  other  districts  of  England, 
there  lived  those  who  held  strongly  to  the  older 
traditions  of  the  English  race.  There  were  families  in 
these  regions  who  treasured  their  memories  from  ancient 
times,  and  who  prided  themselves  on  having  lived  in 
these  parts  long  before  the  coming  of  William  the  Con- 
queror. Among  these  the  English  element  predominated, 
even  as  the  Norman  among  those  of  higher  social  life  in 
London  and  the  great  social  centres  near.  While  Chaucer 
was  singing  his  delightful  ballades,  charming  the  ears  of 
courtiers  and  ladies  by  his  French  love-songs  in  English 
verse,  there  was  a  voice  to  be  heard  other  than  that 
of  "  the  new  gladness  of  a  great  people,  which  utters 
itself  in  the  verse  of  Geoffrey  Chaucer."  It  was  a 
178 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

sterner  voice,  that  disdained  the  gauds  of  rhyme  and  the 
harmonies  of  the  French  school  of  poetry.  For  let  us 
think  of  the  real  conditions  of  the  time.  At  the  court 
there  was  the  pomp,  extravagance,  and  display  of  chivalry, 
the  luxury  and  splendour  of  a  revived  Camelot.  The 
glamour  was  truly  great.  But  between  Cregy  and  Poitiers 
there  was  dire  national  tribulation.  There  were  grave 
economic  and  social  problems,  due  partly  to  the  Black 
Death,  which  in  1349  carried  off  large  parts  of  the  popula- 
tion, and  also  to  the  continuous  wars  with  France.  The 
splendours  of  the  Order  of  the  Garter  proved  no  antidote 
to  these  ills.  The  condition  of  the  country  was  bad; 
there  was  corruption  in  Church  and  State.  Then  it  was 
that  a  stern  voice  arose  in  the  West  Midlands,  the  voice 
of  Langland,  like  that  of  some  Hebrew  prophet-poet 
of  old,  telling  the  people,  in  language  that  went  readily 
home,  in  the  rhymeless  alliterative  metre  of  the  old  days 
before  the  Conquest,  the  stern  truth  that  their  sufferings 
were  due  to  national  shortcomings,  and  that  a  guide  should 
be  found  to  lead  them  to  the  shrine  of  Truth.  Perchance 
from  among  the  lowly,  the  humble  tillers  of  the  soil,  such 
a  true  leader  might  be  found.  This  was  the  purpose  of 
The  Vision  of  Piers  Plowman.  By  the  intensity  of  its 
lesson,  the  Vision  seems  to  have  spread  far  and  wide 
throughout  the  land;  Langland  appears  to  be  the  only 
poet  of  the  West  Midland  school  who  gained  recognition 
as  a  national,  and  not  merely  local,  poet.  The  school  of 
West  Midland  alliterative  poets,  of  whom  there  were 
many,  though  hardly  a  name  other  than  Langland's  has 
come  down  to  us,  holds  a  distinctive  place  in  the  lineage 
of  English  literature.  These  poets,  in  respect  of  metre, 
manner,  and  spirit,  for  the  most  part  harked  back  to  the 
time  before  the  Conquest.      I  do  not  mean  to  sny  for  a 

179 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

moment  that  they  were  acquainted  with  the  writings  of 
Caedmon  or  Cynewulf,  or  any  pre-Conquest  Hterature  ; 
yet  they  were  something  more  than  the  spiritual  heirs  of 
the  older  English  poets.  In  some  way  or  other — the 
problem  is  a  difficult  one — the  Old  English  alliterative 
metre  lived  on  during  the  centuries  that  followed  the 
Norman  Conquest,  and  suddenly,  about  the  middle  of  the 
fourteenth  century,  to  judge  from  extant  poetry,  there 
was  a  great  revival  of  this  archaic  form  of  poetry.  Even 
where  these  poets  chose  their  matter  from  France  or  from 
Latin  sources,  the  spirit  of  the  handling  is  characteristic 
and  altogether  differentiated  from  the  Chaucerian  method. 
All  the  West  Midland  poets  may  not  have  the  technical 
skill  and  finish  attained  by  the  poet  of  Cleanness  and 
Patience^  but  where  the  treatment  shows  a  weaker 
hand,  the  purpose  is  none  the  less  marked,  namely,  that 
the  lesson  is  the  first  consideration,  transcending  all 
effort  in  search  of  the  artistic  and  aesthetic.  In  common 
with  Langland,  the  whole  school  of  West  Midland  poets 
represents  the  backward  link  in  the  genealogy  of  Eng- 
lish poetry,  that  is,  they  link  the  age  of  Chaucer, 
in  spirit  as  well  as  in  form,  to  the  far-off  days  before  the 
Conquest. 

Nor  was  the  alliterative  revival,  as  we  shall  see,  a 
mere  barren  antiquarian  freak.  The  voice  of  William 
Langland  was  not  a  passing  voice;  it  re-echoed  down  the 
ages.  The  Vision  of  Piers  Plowman  cannot  with  any  appre- 
ciation of  the  facts  be  regarded  as  "  the  last  dying  spasm  " 
of  Anglo-Saxon  literature,  as  Sir  A.  Quiller-Couch, 
University  Professor  of  English  Literature  at  Cambridge, 
futilely,  in  my  opinion,  attempts  to  demonstrate,  in  his 
zeal  to  maintain  the  worthlessness  of  Middle  English 
poetry,  save  that  of  Chaucer,  in  the  lineage  of  English 
i8o 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

literature.  "  I  shall  attempt  to  convince  you,"  he  states, 
**  that  Chaucer  did  not  inherit  any  secret  from  Caedmon 
or  Cynewulf."  As  though,  forsooth,  it  were  necessary,  at 
this  time  of  day,  to  prove  what  no  sane  person  would  for 
a  moment  contest!  The  fundamental  error  in  all  these 
discussions  seems  to  be  a  failure  to  understand  that  there 
were  these  two  schools  of  poetry,  the  Chaucerian  and  the 
West  Midland,  representing  two  great  voices  in  the 
harmonies  of  English  poetry,  the  one  with  its  quest  for 
beauty  and  melody,  and  the  other,  by  utterance  more 
homely  and  direct,  seeking  primarily  to  enforce  the  lesson. 
In  their  attitude  toward  Nature  the  two  schools  may  well 
be  contrasted,  the  Chaucerian  with  its  conventional  bright 
May  mornings  and  landscapes  of  joyance,  the  West  Mid- 
land poets  with  their  interpretation  of  Nature  in  her  more 
rugged  moods,  with  their  fondness  for  storms  and  tempests 
and  lowering  clouds.  Even  in  Chaucer's  own  time  one 
poet  at  least  sought  to  harmonise  the  two  voices.  The 
poet  of  Pearl  was  a  West  Midland  poet  who  sought  to 
blend  the  spirit  of  exalted  religious  aspiration  with  the 
beauty,  harmony,  and  picturesqueness  of  the  Romance 
poets.  With  one  hand,  as  it  were,  toward  Langland, 
and  one  toward  Chaucer,  he,  in  a  sense,  more  truly 
than  Chaucer,  is  the  herald  of  the  Elizabethan  poets ; 
certainly  so,  if  Spenser  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  Elizabethan 
poet  par  excellence.  As  the  author  of  Gawain  and  the 
Green  Knight^  this  West  Midland  poet  is  the  prophet  of 
The  Faerie  Queene^  and  stands  on  the  very  threshold 
of  modern  English  poetry,  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the 
term.  If  Chaucer  was  "the  father  of  English  poetry,"  and 
the  old  title  may  well  remain,  let  us  at  all  events  under- 
stand the  place  of  his  contemporaries  in  the  pedigree  of  his 
descendants. 

i8i 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

III 

Let  us  come  to  the  Elizabethan  Age.     The  Elizabethan 
Age  may  roughly  be  described  as  the  meeting-point  of  the 
Ages  of  the  world.     We  pass  from  the  Middle  Ages  to 
what  we  call  the  modern  time.     True,  the  Middle  Ages 
were  not  far  off,  and  their  glamour  was  still  a  potent  source 
of   inspiration.     Antiquity     had    been     rediscovered — the 
great    literatures    of   Judaea,    Greece,    and    Rome.     The 
Revival  of  Learning  was  not  only  the  revived  interest  in 
classical  antiquity;  the  Bible  became  an  open  book,  and 
the    Reformation    in    England,    as     elsewhere,    was    one 
manifestation  of  this  aspect  of  the  Renaissance.     It  is  of 
Edmund  Spenser  that  one  thinks  as  the  poet  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan Age  in  spirit,  in   form,  and  in  apparel  ;  and  the 
secret  of  Spenser's   poetry,    I   am   inclined  to  hold,  may 
perhaps  best  be  understood  with  reference  to  the  theory  I 
am  propounding.      In  text-books  on  Spenser  critics  glibly 
enumerate  the  poet's  limitations,  as  well  as  the  marks  of 
his  greatness,  instead  of  endeavouring  to  understand  some 
of  their  difficulties  in  dealing  with  a  poet  who  is  perhaps 
the   truest   representative  of  the  greatest   age   of  English 
poetry.     There  can  be  little  doubt  that  his  latent  poetic 
genius  was  stirred  into  life  by  turning  over  the  pages  of 
a  black-letter  folio  of  Chaucer,  and  that  instinctively  the 
London    schoolboy,    for    Spenser    was    a  poet  while  still 
at  school,   fell   under   the   spell    of  the   older   poet,    and 
learned  from  him  something  of  the  true  beauty  of  form 
and  harmony.     And  yet,  great  as  was  the  disciple's  debt 
to  his  master,  would  it  be  possible  to  find  two  geniuses 
more    utterly     different    in     spirit     and     character    than 
the  poet  of  Troilus   and   Criseyde   and    the    poet   of   The 
Faerie  Queene,  of  whom  Milton  said  he  was  "  a  greater 
182 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

teacher  than  Aquinas  "  ?  One  thinks  of  the  smile  that 
would  have  played  across  the  features  of  Chaucer,  had 
some  one  hinted  to  him  that  he  was  primarily  a  great 
teacher,  or  had  any  qualifications  or  aspirations  for  that 
office.  But  with  Spenser  it  was  otherwise;  and  the  secret 
of  Spenser  is  this,  that  whereas  as  regards  beauty  of  form 
and  the  technical  art  of  poetry  he  was  truly  the  disciple 
of  Chaucer,  in  spirit  he  belonged  rather  to  the  West 
Midland  poets,  the  school  of  Langland.  This  explains 
why  it  is  that,  although  he  gives  us  creations  steeped  in 
beauty,  sparkling  with  light,  dream  pictures,  armour  of 
richest  damascene,  his  object  is  to  protect  and  save 
and  exalt  the  human  soul.  You  may  well  say  that 
Spenser,  as  Chaucer,  was  a  Londoner.  What  had  he  in 
common  with  the  old  poets  of  the  West  Midlands,  with  the 
spirit  of  Langland,  even  though  he  may  have  read  a  black- 
letter  edition  of  The  Vision  of  Piers  Plowman  ?  My  answer 
might  be  that  the  spirit  of  a  work  is  a  thing  apart 
from  its  immediate  environment.  But  one  need  not 
dismiss  the  question  so  lightly.  It  is  a  fact  that  the 
family  to  which  Spenser  and  all  his  forbears  belonged 
lived  in  Lancashire;  and  this  is  significant  as  regards  those 
marked  elements  in  the  spirit  of  his  poetry  which  link 
him  with  the  West  Midland  school.  In  this  Elizabethan 
poet  par  excellence  there  lived  on,  spiritually,  much  that 
differentiates  him  from  Chaucer  and  the  Chaucerians, 
even  as  an  analysis  of  his  archaic  English  reveals  a  most 
significant  attempt  to  blend  words  due  to  his  reading 
of  Chaucer  with  native  mother-words  belonging  to  the 
family  Lancashire  home.  To  illustrate  some  of  these 
dialect  words,  one  must  turn  to  the  alliterative  poems 
written  by  Chaucer's  contemporaries  of  the  West. 
Gawain  and  the  Green  Knight,  as  I  have  already  suggested, 

183 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

might  well  have  stood  as  a  canto  of  The  Faerie  Queene^ 
and  indeed  the  Gawain  legend  has  its  analogues  there. 
In  beauty,  in  technical  skill,  and  in  picturesqueness  that 
fourteenth-century  poet  is  the  counterpart  of  Spenser, 
though  the  poet  of  the  Renaissance  had  richer  stores  of 
knowledge  to  draw  on.  Yet,  steeped  as  Spenser  was  in  all 
the  New  Learning,  in  the  glory  of  the  philosophy  of  Plato 
and  Aristotle,  and  in  the  inspiration  of  Neoplatonism,  it 
is  remarkable  that  his  close  kinship  with  the  fourteenth- 
century  poet  of  the  alliterative  revival  is  so  unmistakable. 
Spenser,  indeed,  blended  successfully,  even  as  the  poet  of 
Pearl  attempted  to  blend,  the  two  main  voices  in  the  great 
harmony  of  English  song.  It  is  not  without  significance 
that  he  himself,  when  first  he  came  before  the  world  as 
the  new  poet,  with  due  humility  indicated  his  literary 
progenitors : 

Dare  not  to  match  thy  pype  with  Tityrus  hys  style, 

Nor  with  the  Pilgrim  that  the  Ploughman  playde  awhyle  ; 
But  followe  them  farre  off,  and  their  high  steppes  adore  : 
The  better  please,  the  worse  despise  ;  I  aske  nomore. 

And  what  of  Shakespeare  and  the  Elizabethan  drama 
and  their  debt  to  the  Middle  Ages  }  The  Elizabethan 
drama  perhaps  owed  its  greatest  debt  to  the  Middle  Ages 
in  being  rescued,  through  the  freedom  and  ease  that 
characterised  the  earlier  drama,  from  slavish  adherence 
to  the  conventional  classical  forms  of  tragedy  and  comedy, 
from  the  tyranny  of  Seneca  and  Plautus  and  Terence, 
from  the  unities  of  time  and  place  and  action.  In  respect  of 
matter,  it  might  be  an  easy  thing  to  point  to  the  mediaeval 
sources  of  Shakespeare  and  the  Elizabethan  drama.  The 
matter  of  Britain  and  France,  mediaeval  romances  and  tales, 
chronicles,  ballads,  and  folklore  all  contributed  materials 
on  which  the  dramatists  worked.  As  regards  the  chief 
184 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

instrument  of  expression,  blank  verse,  which  was  originally 
a  purely  academic  importation  from   Italy,  it  became  the 
plastic    instrument    able    to    bear    the    impress    of  varied 
human  emotions,  only  when  it  had  become,  as  it  were, 
thoroughly  Teutonised.      Shakespeare,  and  to  some  extent 
Marlowe    before    him,    unconsciously    rediscovered    that 
freedom  which  characterised  the  Old  English  metre,  and 
imposed  it  on  this  alien  blank  verse.     Of  course,  in  reality 
it  was  the  English  spirit  resisting  slavery  to  an  academic 
convention,  and  naturalising  an  alien  metre.     Yet  what- 
ever one  may  adduce  tending  to  link  Shakespeare's  work 
to  the  Middle  Ages,  and  although  he  may  wear  the  ap- 
parelling of  his  own  age,  his  powers  transcend  altogether 
the  stuff  on  which  his  genius  worked.     And  so  it  is  that 
I  have  chosen  Spenser,  rather  than  Shakespeare,  to  illus- 
trate the  underlying  purpose  of  my  discourse.     Much  as 
I  would  wish  to  dwell  on  the  varied  forms  of  poetry,  the 
sonnet,  the  lyrical  measures,  complaints,  and  other  forms 
of  Elizabethan  poetry  derived  from  earlier  ages,  as  these 
do  not  help  forward  my  main  contention,  I  pass  them  by 
with  this  brief  reference. 

Taken  comprehensively,  as  Taine  well  put  it,  the 
Renaissance  in  England  was  the  renaissance  of  the  Saxon 
genius.  From  this  point  of  view  it  is  significant  that 
Shakespeare's  greatest  achievement,  Hamlet^  is  the  pre- 
sentment of  a  typically  northern  hero,  the  embodiment  of 
the  northern  character : 

Dark  and  true  and  tender  is  the  North 

IV 

In  the  period  known  as  the  Romantic  Revival,  anti- 
quarianism  holds  almost  as  great  a  place  as  the  '  return  to 
nature.'      The  instinctive    protest    against    *  good    sense  * 

185 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

led  to  the  groping  for  far-off  things  and    for   the    truer 

understanding    of   nature    apart    from    convention.      The 

various   elements   of  mediaevalism   that  were   contributory 

sources  of  inspiration  to  the  poets  of  the  period  of  the 

Romantic  Revival  have  been  ably  dealt  with  by  more  than 

one  historian  of  English  literature.     Percy's  Reliques,  and 

Macpherson's  Ossian,  the  Runic  poetry  that  inspired  Gray, 

Chatterton's  infatuation,  all  represent  phases  in  the  effort 

to  recapture  the  matter,  spirit,  and  form  of  far-off  days. 

Very  often  that  return  to  the  past  meant  a  return  to  the 

Elizabethans,  and  to  Spenser  in   particular,  and  through 

Spenser  men  unwittingly  got  much  of  the  spirit  of  the 

Middle  Ages.     Then  came  Coleridge  and  Wordsworth, 

and  their  efforts  to  regain  something  that  had  been  lost 

to  English  poetry.      T/ie   Ancient  Mariner  and    Christabel 

are  the  manifestations  of   the   effort  of  the   new  poetry 

in   its  adventures  in  the  eerie  realms  of  mediaeval  lore. 

But  for  my  purpose,  as  enforcing  my  theme,  I  would  for 

the  moment  rather  dwell  on  Wordsworth's  poetry,  in  which 

there  is  so  little  of  direct  inspiration  from  mediiEvalism. 

There  is  no  wild  Gothic  terror  and  wonderment  that  one 

can  point  to  as  linking  him  with  mediaeval  machinery.     Yet 

in  his  very  canons  of  poetic  diction,  his  early  contemning 

of  artifice,  his  exaltation  of  spirit,  aiming  seriously  at  the 

truth  of  things,  his  placing  of  the  lesson  over  and  above 

the  form,  his  treatment  of  Nature  especially  in  her  sterner 

moods,    his    attitude    as    prophet-poet    dealing    with    the 

realities  of  his  time,  the  very  limitations  noted  in  him  as 

poet,  help  to  remind  one  that  we  are  not  here  dealing  with 

a  poet  of  London,  but  one  bred  among  the  solitary  cliffs, 

among  the 

Presences  of  Nature  in  the  sky 
And  on  the  earth, 
i86 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

among  the  "  visions  of  the  hills,  and  souls  of  lonely  places." 
It  is  of  no  small  interest  that  the  chief  of  the  Lake  Poets 
is  a  West  Midland  poet,  and  belongs  to  about  the  same 
district  as  that  assigned  to  the  poet  of  Pearl  and  of  Gawain 
and  the  Green  Knight. 

Mediaeval  beauty  revealed  itself  truly  through  Keats, 
who  through  Spenser  passed  on  to  Chaucer^  and  touched 
with  his  own  genius  mediaevalism,  even  as  he  transformed 
the  myths  of  Hellas.  Keats  entered  into  the  land  of  faery, 
his  poetic  soul  untouched  by  mere  antiquarianism,  and  for 
sheer  inimitable  mediaeval  glamour  nothing  can  exceed 
his  transmuting  touch: 

I  met  a  lady  in  the  meads 

Full  beautiful,  a  faery's  child  ; 
Her  hair  was  long,  her  foot  was  light. 

And  her  eyes  were  wild. 

I  set  her  on  my  pacing  steed. 

And  nothing  else  saw  all  day  long  ; 

For  sideways  would  she  lean,  and  sing 
A  faery's  song. 

"  The  Wizard  of  the  North,"  on  whom  the  spell  of  medi- 
aevalism worked  so  mightily,  restored  with  marvellous 
precision  the  panorama  of  mediaeval  life.  It  is  not  here  a 
matter  of  the  poet's  own  spiritual  outlook.  Yet  one  may 
recapture  much  of  the  matter  of  mediaevalism  without 
being  affected  by  its  spirit. 

The  theme  of  King  Arthur  is  perhaps  of  all  others  the 
most  abiding  and  inspiring  in  English  literature;  but  the 
artistic  beauty,  delicacy,  and  charm  of  Tennyson's  Idylls 
are  a  long  way  off  from  any  antiquarian  revival.  He 
feels  himself  inheritor  of  the  great  mediaeval  theme, 
and  applies  thereto  his  own  ideals  and  workmanship. 
Through    Keats,    back    through    the    ages    to     Chaucer, 

187 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

Tennyson  links  himself  to  those  poets  who  gave  the  first 
place  in  the  art  of  poetry  to  the  quest  for  the  beautiful 
in  harmony,  diction,  and  picturesqueness — a  contrast  to 
his  contemporary  Browning,  whose  alleged  obscurity  and 
neglect  of  finesse  remind  one  of  the  other  type  of  the 
poetic  mind,  caring  more  for  the  message  than  the  form. 


The  Pre-Raphaelite  movement  manifested  itself  in 
literature  as  well  as  in  art.  Rossetti,  if  not  Holman  Hunt, 
belongs  to,  and  was  not  merely  associated  with,  English 
literature.  But  one  of  the  brotherhood,  William  Morris, 
represents  better  than  anyone  of  the  age  that  has  passed 
some  of  the  main  aspects  of  the  subject  here  dealt  with. 
In  memorable  lines  addressed  to  Chaucer  he  hailed  that  poet 
as  "  the  idle  singer  of  an  empty  day,"  a  refrain  which  later 
on  he  applied  to  himself.  He,  the  poet  of  "  art  for  art's 
sake,"  found  his  own  heart  near  to  Chaucer,  "  great  of 
heart  and  tongue";  and  in  his  jfirst  published  book.  The 
Defence  of  Guenevere^  we  find  him  stretching  out  his 
arms  to  capture  the  fancies  of  mediaeval  romance  and 
repicturing  them  with  new  artistic  charms.  The  spirit  of 
Chaucer  is  on  him  in  this  volume,  which  was  the  earnest 
of  even  greater  achievement.  That  spell  still  held  him  as 
the  poet  of  The  Life  and  Death  of  Jason  and  The  Earthly 
Paradise.  Then  came  upon  him  the  deeper  spirit  that  set 
him  pondering  on  social  problems,  and  "  the  idle  singer  of 
an  empty  day  "  became  the  protagonist  of  the  cause  of 
social  reform  and  the  dignity  of  work.  Another  spell 
possessed  him,  linking  him  to  the  spirit  of  Langland,  or, 
at  all  events,  of  Langland's  contemporary,  John  Ball, 
with  his  famous  text : 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

When  Adam  dalf,  and  Eve  span, 
Who  was  thanne  a  gentilman  ? 

He  brought  into  English  literature  the  riches,  not  only  of 
mediaeval  Romantic  literature,  but  also  of  the  Sagas  and 
Eddas  of  old  Scandinavia.  As  artist  he  had  kinship  with 
Chaucer;  but  there  co-existed  in  his  being  that  other 
spirit  of  the  literature  of  Chaucer's  time  represented  by 
his  great  contemporary,  the  author  of  The  Vision  of  Piers 
Plowman.      Translator  of  the   Odyssey  and  the  Mneid^  he 


ERRATA        ^ 

On  page  i88  lines  14,  15,  read  "as  not"  instead  of  "as," 
and  "  humbly  "  instead  of  "  later  on." 


strams.  ine  quest  ror  me  uciiuLuui  win  ima  cApicssiun 
in  richest  harmonies,  and  the  teaching  of  the  lesson  will 
still  be  enforced  by  prophet-poets.  As  in  the  past,  so  in 
the  future  there  will  be  many  mansions  in  the  great 
house  of  English  Poetry,  and  one  at  least  there  will  always 
be,  richly  storied  from  the  realms  of  Mediaeval  Romance, 
with 

Magic  casements,  opening  on  the  foam 
Of  perilous  seas,  in  faery  lands  forlorn. 

Israel  Gollancz 


189 


VII 

EDUCATION 

THE  previous  lectures  of  this  course  have  told  of 
the  mediaeval  contribution  to  religion,  philosophy, 
science,  art,  literature;  lectures  yet  to  be  given 
will  discuss  mediaeval  society,  politics,  and  economics. 
There  is  not  one  of  these  things  which  does  not  educate; 
and  if  those  lectures  satisfy  you  that  the  Middle  Ages 
made  substantial  additions  to  human  culture,  then  the 
case  for  mediaeval  education  is  already  argued  and  proved. 
But  there  is  a  use  of  the  word  *  education  *  which  confines 
its  range  to  schools  and  to  similar  institutions;  presum- 
ably the  word  was  so  interpreted  by  those  who  arranged 
the  present  series.  Although  I  deprecate  as  strongly  as 
possible  this  limitation  of  the  term,  I  will  try  to  keep 
within  it. 

Our  subject  is  the  mediaeval  contribution  to  education 
so  understood ;  and  I  propose  to  use  the  word  '  contribu- 
tion *  so  as  to  include  negative  as  well  as  positive  factors. 
Any  historical  period  may  be  regarded  as  a  field  upon 
which  men  experimented  in  the  art  of  living ;  when  men 
of  a  later  age  come  to  survey  such  a  period  from  their 
own  vantage-ground  they  will  detect  failure  as  well  as 
success,  weak  points  and  strong  points  in  their  prede- 
cessors* experimenting.  So  regarded,  our  subject  is  of 
much  more  than  antiquarian  interest.  The  ultra-modern 
man  who  thinks  of  the  Middle  Ages  as  *  reactionary,' 
obsolete,  or  sunk  without  leaving  a  trace  will  discover  in 
190 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

mediaeval  shortcomings  matter  suggestive  of  reform  in  the 
practice  of  to-day.  He  will  have  the  added  satisfaction 
of  saying  that  he  had  "  told  you  so."  The  record  of 
defect  is  a  negative  contribution,  but  a  contribution  never- 
theless. We  ourselves  are  past  doubt  making  similar 
contributions  to  the  future. 

But  the  historically  informed  man,  knowing  that  his 
own  age  is  the  residuary  legatee  of  the  ages  which  have 
preceded,  will  attend  rather  to  the  mediaeval  successes, 
the  positive  contributions  of  the  past,  and  these  he  will 
discover  to  be  neither  few  nor  unimportant,  but  fraught 
with  instruction  for  the  present  time. 

How  has  it  come  about  that  for  centuries  past  all 
formal  schooling  in  Western  Europe  has  had  a  literary 
foundation,  and  a  superstructure  which,  in  the  main,  has 
also  been  literary — a  business  of  papers,  pens,  and  ink  ? 
The  answer  goes  back  beyond  the  early  limit  of  our  period, 
to  the  pre-Christian  time  when  the  rhetorical  education 
prevailed  throughout  the  Roman  Empire.  Grammar — 
that  is,  the  study  of  the  languages  and  literatures  of  Rome 
and  of  Greece — was  the  staple  of  the  instruction  then 
given,  its  higher  stages  constituting  a  training  in  rhetoric 
whose  chief  merit  was  thought  to  be  in  style,  whether  of 
the  written  or  the  spoken  word.  The  two  literatures  make 
a  mirror  of  human  life,  of  its  highest  ideals  and  of  its 
lowest,  poorest  performances  no  less,  as  Greeks  and  Latins 
conceived  or  observed  them.  When  Christianity  reached 
the  classes  whose  education  had  been  of  this  kind,  and 
the  question  arose.  How  should  the  converts'  children  be 
educated  .''  these  adherents  of  the  new  faith  were  in  a 
quandary.  The  only  general  public  form  of  schooling 
available  was  that  which  they  themselves  had  received  in 
the  State  and  municipal  schools  of  the  Empire.     But  the 

191 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

instruction  there  given  was  based  upon,  and  largely 
consisted  of,  the  study  of  literatures  which  were  uncom- 
promisingly pagan,  and  sometimes  flagrantly  opposed  to 
Christian  morals.  "  Hearts  devoted  to  Christ  find  no 
room  for  the  Muses,  nor  lie  open  to  Apollo." 

Tertullian  (a.d.  150-230)  reflects  this  quandary  In  an 
age  when  a  Christian  literature  was  only  in  process  of 
consolidation,  and  therefore  not  yet  available  for  school 
use.  He  held  that  it  was  impossible  for  a  Christian  to 
be  a  schoolmaster  or  to  teach  letters,  since  the  exercise 
of  that  profession  implied  belief  in  a  pagan  theology  and 
the  daily  practice  of  pagan  rites  and  customs.  But  the 
pupil  was  in  a  different  case.  As  a  learner  already  fortified 
by  knowledge  of  the  Christian  faith,  **  he  neither  receives 
nor  becomes  a  party  to  "  the  paganism  which  necessarily 
forms  so  large  a  part  of  Greek  and  Latin  letters.  This  is, 
of  course,  an  entirely  inconsistent  attitude  for  Tertullian 
to  take  up.  But  note  his  reason  for  adopting  it.  "  We 
know  it  may  be  said  that,  if  it  is  not  permissible  to  the 
servants  of  God  to  teach  letters,  neither  will  it  be  permis- 
sible to  learn  them.  How,  then,  may  anyone  be  trained 
to  human  intelligence  or  to  any  understanding  or  business, 
since  literature  is  the  record  of  all  life  ?  How  can  we 
repudiate  secular  studies^  without  which  divine  studies  are  not 
-possible  ?  Let  us,  therefore,  appreciate  the  necessity  of 
literary  learning  in  its  incompatibility  on  the  one  hand 
and  its  inevitableness  on  the  other." 

There  was  much  life  in  Tertullian's  paradox,  since  the 
necessity  of  studying  Latin,  if  not  Latin  and  Greek, 
became  more  evident  as  time  advanced.  On  the  break-up 
of  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  fifth  century,  Latin,  and 
such  knowledge  of  Greek  as  survived  in  the  West  in  the 
original  or  in  Latin  translation,  constituted  the  sole  de- 
192 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

positories  of  knowledge  of  all  kinds,  whether  desired  for 
the  sake  of  a  profession  or  for  purposes  of  culture.  St 
Augustine  of  Hippo  toward  the  close  of  the  fourth  century 
declared  that  a  knowledge  of  the  Liberal  Arts  was  necessary 
if  the  Scriptures  were  to  be  understood.  Some  two  cen- 
turies or  more  later  Virgilius  the  Grammarian  gave  the 
same  reason  for  studying  *  grammar.'  Both  were  repeating 
Tertullian's  dictum  respecting  "  secular  studies,  without 
which  divine  studies  are  not  possible."  Since  *  divine 
studies,'  or  divinity,  meant  the  study  of  the  Scriptures 
and  the  writings  of  the  Christian  Fathers,  grammar,  the 
systematic  study  of  the  languages  in  which  these  were 
written,  was  the  indispensable  gate  of  approach. 

Thus,  however  unwillingly,  the  Christian  Church  for 
Christian  purposes  kept  alive  so  much  of  the  ancient 
pre-Christian  civilisation  as  is  revealed  in  Latin  and,  to  a 
much  less  degree  in  the  West,  in  Greek  literature.  The 
Church's  recognised  form  of  secular  instruction  was  simply 
the  rhetorical  education  of  Imperial  Rome  as  described 
by  Quintilian.  The  politic  *  conversions  '  which  took 
place  after  the  reign  of  Constantine  must  have  included 
many  whose  conversion  was  merely  acquiescence,  and 
amongst  these  would  be  found  adherents  to  the  old  reli- 
gion and  culture.  Of  course,  men,  whether  Christian  or 
not,  were  not  all  insensible  to  the  intrinsic  attraction, 
beauty,  and  moral  value  of  Latin  and  Greek  letters ;  there 
were  Christians  not  a  few  of  whom  St  Jerome  was  typical. 
The  Saint  was  himself  a  distinguished  product  of  the 
older  culture  as  it  existed  in  the  fourth  century.  While 
lying  ill  in  Syria,  he  turned  for  solace  to  Plautus  and 
Cicero  in  preference  to  the  Psalter.  He  dreamed  that  he 
was  dead,  and  on  the  threshold  of  the  other  world  was  met 
by  the  challenge,  "  Who  art  thou  ?  "     To  his  answer,  "  A 

N  193 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

Christian,"  he  received  the  reply,  "  No,  no  Christian,  but 
a  Ciceronian ;  where  the  treasure  is,  there  is  the  heart  also." 

The  dates  of  some  early  extant  manuscripts  -of  Virgil 
are  significant  from  this  point  of  view.  Those  at 
St  Gall  and  in  the  Vatican  Library  belong  to  the  fourth 
century,  while  the  Florentine  manuscript,  which  once 
belonged  to  the  monastery  of  Bobbio,  was  written  in 
the  fifth.  Virgil  remained  a  favourite  author  throughout 
the  Middle  Ages;  the  part  which  Dante  makes  him 
play  in  the  Commedia  will  be  recalled.  Such  names  as 
those  of  Donatus,  St  Augustine,  Boethius  are  symbolic 
of  the  close  interplay  between  the  Christian  and  pagan 
civilisations.  It  is  possible,  nay,  comparatively  easy, 
to  draw  up  a  list  of  names  of  men  who  possessed  a 
knowledge  of  ancient  literature,  the  names  traversing  the 
centuries  through  the  so-called  Dark  Ages  right  down 
to  the  revival  of  classical  learning  and  the  beginning  of 
the  modern  period.  When  account  is  taken  of  the  dis- 
covery by  fifteenth-century  scholars  of  ancient  manuscripts 
of  the  classics  in  monastic  libraries,  it  is  well  to  dilate 
upon  the  dust  and  neglect  of  their  condition;  but  it  is 
not  well  to  ignore  the  significance  of  the  fact  that  they 
were  there  to  be  discovered. 

The  Middle  Ages,  then,  continued  the  rhetorical  instruc- 
tion which  had  constituted  the  formal  schooling  of  Latins 
and  Greeks.  But  the  word  '  rhetoric '  (which  literally 
should  mean  no  more  than  composition,  particularly  of 
speeches),  when  used  comprehensively  as  meaning  a  mode 
of  education,  involved  much  more  than  this.  Quintilian 
describes  the  orator  as  "  the  good  man  skilled  in  speaking," 
and  he  certainly  attaches  as  much  importance  to  the  good- 
ness as  to  the  skill.  Moreover,  he  has  a  prejudice  in 
favour  of  the  view,  not  universally  entertained  by  rhetori- 
194 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

cians,  that  the  orator  should  be  a  well-informed  man  who 
really  has  something  to  communicate  when  he  speaks.  In 
consequence,  the  education  of  the  orator,  as  Quintilian 
conceived  him,  included  instruction  in  a  great  variety  of 
matters  as  well  as  in  the  art  of  composition.  At  the 
beginning  of  our  period,  early  in  the  fifth  century,  the 
curriculum  had  become  organised  into  the  Seven  Liberal 
Arts,  which  are  sometimes  subdivided  into  the  three  '  arts  * 
of  the  Trivium,  grammar,  rhetoric,  dialectic,  and  the 
four  *  disciplines  '  of  the  Quadrivium,  geometry,  arith- 
metic, astronomy,  music.  The  all-round  character  of  this 
course  of  study  will  be  noted,  although  all  the  seven  terms 
are  not  synonymous  with  the  same  words  as  used  to-day. 
Dialectic,  which  at  its  best  meant  what  we  now  call  philo- 
sophy, at  its  worst  meant  formal  logic,  a  dry  and  some- 
what sterile  form  of  which  was  in  great  favour  in  mediaeval 
schools  and  universities.  Grammar,  as  already  said,  was 
the  study  of  both  language  and  literature;  the  Middle 
Ages  were  over  when  the  word  acquired  its  present-day 
meaning.  Arithmetic  under  Boethius,  the  master-mathe- 
matician of  mediaeval  students,  stood  for  the  study  of  the 
properties  of  numbers,  particularly  of  the  doctrine  of 
ratio  and  proportion.  Astronomy  tended  to  wander  into 
astrology.  Music  was  not  so  much  the  practical  art  as  the 
mathematical  and  physical  study  of  musical  sound. 

Grammar  was  the  universal  entrance  to  all  these  arts, 
and  beyond  them  to  the  professional  studies  of  the  theo- 
logian, lawyer,  and  medical  man,  since  the  matter  of  their 
studies  was  to  be  found  in  the  works  of  Latin  authors 
and  of  Greek  authors  whose  books  were  known  to  the 
West  chiefly  in  Latin  versions.  Accordingly,  grammar  was 
par  excellence  the  work  of  the  school,  though  in  the  later 
Middle  Ages  *  trivial  schools  '  aspired  to  go  beyond  it. 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

The  conditions  of  mediaeval  teaching  called  for  the 
preservation  and  diffusion  of  books  when  printing  was 
unknown ;  that  art,  itself  a  great  mediaeval  contribution  to 
education,  was  not  invented  in  Europe  till  near  the  close 
of  our  period,  the  mid-fifteenth  century.  What  was  done 
during  the  intervening  centuries  ?  The  word  '  manu- 
script '  calls  up  visions  of  splendid  colour  and  of  delicate 
craftsmanship  in  many  minds,  to  the  exclusion  of  all 
thought  of  cheapness  or  of  multiplicity  of  copies.  Yet 
there  were  cheap  and,  no  doubt,  poor  manuscripts  in 
ancient  Rome  and  in  mediaeval  Italy.  These,  like  the 
earliest  books  printed  outside  these  islands,  were  school 
books,  books  of  devotion  and  of  learning,  books  of  stand- 
ing which  were  comparatively  in  general  request. 

But  the  production  of  manuscripts  on  a  large  scale 
involves  a  settled  order  of  life  not  easily  found  in  the 
centuries  which  witnessed  the  prostration  of  Rome.  In 
the  middle  of  the  sixth  century  Cassiodorus,  who  had  been 
an  Italian  civil  servant  of  the  highest  rank,  founded  a 
monastery  in  Southern  Italy,  and  made  the  transcription 
of  manuscripts  part  of  the  business  of  his  monks.  While 
the  prime  purpose  was  the  preservation  and  extension 
of  *  divine  letters,'  secondary  objects  were  the  study  of 
*  grammar  *  as  preparatory  to  divinity,  and  the  pursuit  of 
the  Seven  Liberal  Arts  as  auxiliary  to  both.  In  other  words, 
this  particular  form  of  monastic  labour  tended  to  the 
preservation  and  propagation  of  ancient  letters  and  learn- 
ing. Other  monasteries  and  other  monastic  societies 
followed  the  example  thus  set.  With  the  rise  of  univer- 
sities in  the  twelfth  century  and  the  multiplication  of 
schools,  the  copying  of  manuscripts  became  a  trade 
exercised  independently  of  monasteries  and  of  the  devo- 
tion of  the  individual  scholar.  At  the  close  of  our  period 
196 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

there  were  in  England  Greeks,  whose  names  and  places 
of  work  are  on  record,  who  were  employed  in  transcribing 
Greek  manuscripts. 

The  writing-room  of  the  monastery  implied  its  book- 
room  or  library.  Alcuin,  at  that  time  scolastkus^  or 
director,  of  the  cathedral  school  of  York,  has  left  an 
account  of  its  library  as  it  was  in  the  late  eighth  century. 
It  contained  copies  of  the  Scriptures  and  the  writings  of 
divines  of  Latin,  Greek,  and  Hebrew  origin ;  the  Greek 
and  Hebrew  were  very  probably  in  Latin  translations.  It 
also  included  the  writings  of  Christian  Latin  poets,  and 
works  by  Aristotle  (again,  in  Latin),  Pliny,  Cicero,  Virgil, 
Statius,  Lucan,  as  well  as  treatises  by  the  grammarians. 
There  were  famous  libraries  in  the  great  monasteries  of 
Bobbio,  St  Gall,  and  Luxeuil,  foundations  of  Irish  origin 
dating  from  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries.  Bobbio  in 
particular  owned  great  store  of  manuscripts.  Shortage  of 
writing  material,  a  strong  desire  to  write  what  chiefly  in- 
terested contemporary  monastic  readers,  and  a  weakened 
sense  of  the  worth  of  classical  works  united  to  favour  the 
reprehensible  practice  of  erasing  the  original  handwriting 
and  using  the  vellum  skins  afresh.  These  palimpsests 
afford  a  striking  illustration  of  a  possible  danger  lurking 
behind  a  consuming  desire  to  be  *  up-to-date,*  since  the 
second  writing  very  rarely  compensated  for  the  loss  of 
the  first.  Dr  M.  R.  James  thinks  that  these  erasures 
seldom,  if  ever,  were  perpetrated  after  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury ;  manuscripts  now  extant  show  that  there  was  great 
activity  in  transcribing  classical  authors  during  the  ninth 
century,  and  that  manuscripts  were  produced  in  great 
numbers  during  the  twelfth  century.^ 

Toward  the  close  of  our  period   the  library  catalogue 

^   M.  R.  James,  The  Wanderings  and  Homes  of  Manuscripts  (1919). 

197 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

of  Peterhouse  shows  entries  under  the  names  of  Sallust, 
QuintiHan,  Seneca,  Ovid,  Statius,  Lucan — a  few  authors 
of  the  first  rank  amongst  a  great  welter  of  forgotten 
mediaeval  writers.  In  1439,  and  again  in  1443,  Humphrey, 
Duke  of  Gloucester,  presented  to  the  University  of  Oxford 
books  in  manuscript  which  included  works  by  Cicero,  a 
Greek-Latin  vocabulary,  and  Latin  translations  from  Plato, 
Aristotle,  and  ^Eschines.  But  in  Duke  Humphrey  we 
have  an  amateur  of  the  revived  classical  learning,  and  are 
therefore  moving  beyond  the  Middle  Ages,  his  date  not- 
withstanding. Still,  his  library  marks  the  time  of  transi- 
tion, the  greater  portion  consisting  of  mediaeval  treatises 
on  the  Seven  Liberal  Arts,  on  divinity,  law,  and  medicine. 
The  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries  saw  the  beginning 
of  such  great  collections  of  books  as  those  of  the  Louvre, 
the  Vatican,  and  the  Laurentian  Library  at  Florence. 

In  these  various  ways  the  Middle  Ages  transmitted  a 
knowledge  and  a  certain  appreciation  of  the  civilisation  of 
Rome  and  Greece.  Parenthetically  it  may  be  pointed  out 
that  these  islands  played  no  mean  part  in  this  transmission. 
An  inherent  weakness  in  rhetorical  instruction,  its  exces- 
sive admiration  for  form  as  such,  reduced  continental 
writing  in  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries  to  a  trivial 
pedantry  and  the  neglect  of  literature,  faults  which  were 
intensified  by  the  comparative  ignorance  of  Greek.  Ireland 
never  formed  part  of  the  Roman  Empire.  By  ways  on 
which  authorities  are  not  agreed,  Irish  scholars,  who  were 
invariably  Christian  monks,  kept  touch  with  the  East, 
retained  some  knowledge  of  the  Greek  language  as  well 
as  of  classical  Latin  literature,  avoided  the  stupid  pedantry 
of  their  continental  contemporaries,  and  in  due  course 
taught  these  virtues  to  the  English  of  Northumbria. 
Both  Irish  and  English,  but  the  former  especially,  com- 
198 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

municated  these  benefits  to  Gaul,  to  Alemannia,  and  to 
the  Prankish  kingdoms. 

So  it  came  about  that  the  literary,  bookish  type  of 
education,  established  originally  within  the  Latin  civilisa- 
tion, was  maintained  and  made  the  system  of  the  mediaeval 
schools,  the  system  which  flourished  down  to  our  own 
day — if  indeed  it  is  appropriate  to  speak  of  it  in  the 
past  tense.  The  Middle  Ages,  however,  supplemented 
this  literary  culture  in  a  way  to  be  described  presently. 

The  present-day  curriculum  is  greatly  indebted  to  that 
which  was  in  operation  under  the  Roman  Empire;  and  we 
owe  the  transmission  chiefly  to  mediaeval  solicitude  for  the 
study  of  divinity.  The  same  interest  also  caused  the 
Middle  Ages  to  produce  a  system  of  institutions  and  of 
their  administration  from  which  the  main  lines  of  modern 
public  instruction  have  been  evolved. 

When  the  Christian  Church  became  an  integral  part  of 
the  Roman  imperial  polity,  its  bishops  were  usually  drawn 
from  socially  prominent  families,  whose  sons  had  received 
the  customary  rhetorical  education.  In  such  cases  the 
bishop's  seat  formed  a  local  centre  of  culture,  clerical  and 
lay.  When  Church  and  Empire  fell  upon  evil  days,  this 
concentration  of  culture  was  intensified.  Missionary  work 
amongst  barbarian  populations  and  theological  controversy 
with  pagan  fellow-citizens  made  great  demands  upon  the 
teaching  function  of  the  Church.  Education  was  particu- 
larly conceived  as  a  training  in  divine  letters,  to  which 
grammar  and  the  Liberal  Arts  were  necessary.  The  supreme 
educational  authority  and  administrator  within  each  diocese 
was  the  bishop,  or  his  representative.  From  time  to  time 
councils  of  the  Church  laid  the  duty  of  education  upon 
cathedral  and  collegiate  churches  and  upon  the  greater 
monasteries.      It   was   held   that   the   instruction   given   in 

199 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

these  capitular  and  monastic  schools  should  be  gratuitous. 
Teaching  in  grammar  and  divinity  was  necessary  for  those 
who  were  to  become  priests ;  the  choristers  must  be  able 
to  read  the  Latin  Psalter  and  service-book  and  to  sing. 
Divinity  developed  into  theology,  and  the  latter  involved 
obvious  relations  with  philosophy  which,  under  the  in- 
fluence of  Aristotelian  teaching,  became  scholasticism.  At 
the  base  of  this  theological  and  philosophical  learning  lay 
'  grammar  '  and  the  Liberal  Arts.  Thus,  a  cathedral  or  a 
collegiate  church  or  a  monastery  which  was  active  in 
discharging  the  function  of  teaching  contained  in  embryo 
both  a  grammar-school  and  a  university.  In  favourable 
circumstances,  such  as  those  of  Paris,  Orleans,  Chartres, 
those  institutions  were  actually  evolved  from  the  eccle- 
siastical centre.  The  song  schools,  which  taught  music 
and  the  mere  reading  of  Latin  as  the  language  of  worship, 
had  powers  of  development  which  sometimes  carried  them 
beyond  their  own  modest  function  and  into  the  sphere  of 
the  grammar-school. 

At  an  early  period  the  supervision  of  these  ecclesiastical 
schools  was  delegated  by  the  bishop,  or  abbot,  to  a  member 
of  the  chapter  (in  most  cases,  the  chancellor),  who  in  respect 
of  this  duty  was  known  as  the  scolasticus,  archiscolus,  or 
archiscola.  He  might,  or  might  not,  actively  exercise  the 
office  of  teacher;  but  in  all  cases  he  licensed  all  school- 
masters within  the  diocese,  determined  whether  a  school 
was  needed  in  a  particular  district,  and  took  measures 
intended  to  prevent  overlapping  and  excessive  competition. 
He  claimed  to  supervise  schools  of  lay  origin,  such  as  those 
founded  by  town  councils  and  guilds,  and  schools  attached 
to  hospitals.  His  jurisdiction  naturally  extended  to  the 
numerous  schools  which  were  associated  with  chantries 
either  by  express  foundation  or  by  custom.  In  short, 
200 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

the  Middle  Ages  gave  to  later  times  not  only  a  substantial 
part  of  the  curriculum,  but  also  schools,  universities,  and 
the  conception  of  public  education  locally  administered 
by  a  director.  Gratuitous  instruction  and  the  licensing 
of  schoolmasters  without  exacting  a  fee  were  principles  of 
that  administration  which  were  not  observed  at  all  times 
and  in  all  places;  nevertheless,  when  fees  were  charged 
they  were  always  low.  Board  and  lodging  were,  of  course, 
paid  for  by  pupils  who  were  not  *  on  the  foundation,'  and 
therefore  had  no  claim  upon  it  beyond  instruction. 

The  university  is  a  peculiarly  mediaeval  institution  in 
point  of  origin.  Athens,  Alexandria,  Rhodes,  and  other 
centres  of  the  ancient  civilisation  possessed  places  of  higher 
education  which  attracted  young  men  from  distant  lands. 
But  they  had  little  in  common  with  universities  as  we  know 
them,  on  their  administrative  side  especially.  The  division 
of  teachers  and  of  students  into  faculties,  the  ordered 
systems  of  curricula  and  of  corresponding  degrees,  the 
government  of  the  university  society,  are  all  forms  of 
development  which  took  shape  in  mediaeval  times.  The 
very  name  *  university,'  /.<?.,  uni-versitas  or  guild,  is  a  re- 
minder of  the  fact,  since  guilds  were  a  characteristic  feature 
of  mediaeval  society.  The  technical  name  for  a  university 
was  studium  generale^  within  which  the  universitas^  or  guild, 
whether  of  teachers  or  of  scholars,  built  up  the  university 
Ufe. 

The  earliest  universities,  Bologna,  Paris,  Oxford,  were 
never  *  founded  '  in  any  formal  sense,  and  the  date  of  their 
origin  is  uncertain ;  by  the  last  quarter  of  the  twelfth 
century  all  three  were  recognised  studia  generalia.  Cam- 
bridge held  that  status  in  the  opening  years  of  the  thir- 
teenth century.  But  advanced  teaching  existed  certainly 
at  Bologna,  Paris,  and  Oxford,  possibly  also  at  Cambridge, 

20I 


MEDIi^VAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

before  those  times.  For  example,  Paris  is  associated  with 
the  scholastic  philosophy  and  theology  of  Peter  Abelard, 
teaching  which,  by  attracting  crowds  of  students,  made 
inevitable  the  establishment  of  a  studium  generale  and  a 
teachers'  guild.      Yet  Abelard  died  in  1142. 

Colleges  in  universities  are  another  mediaeval  invention. 
In  their  early  period,  the  studia  generalia  confined  them- 
selves almost  entirely  to  the  business  of  teaching;  board 
and  lodging  were  matters  personal  to  the  teacher  and 
student.  But  circumstances  did  not  allow  this  easy 
attitude  to  be  maintained  for  long.  The  great  majority  of 
the  teachers  and  students  were  sojourners  amidst  a  town 
population  rarely  friendly  and  frequently  hostile.  As  a 
rule  both  teachers  and  students  were  poor;  the  former 
derived  their  living  from  their  teaching  and  its  appur- 
tenances. Usually  destitute  of  ecclesiastical  benefice,  they 
were,  though  *  clerks,'  virtually  professional  lay  teachers, 
not,  as  a  class,  especially  loved  by  the  ecclesiastical  authorities. 
Some  boarded  and  lodged  students;  the  earliest  university 
statutes  (Paris,  12 15)  noted  the  relationship  between 
*  clerks  *  and  those,  not  being  members  of  the  university, 
who  let  lodgings  to  students.  In  course  of  time  hostels 
for  poor  students  were  established  by  charitable  persons. 
The  advent  of  the  friars,  Franciscan  and  Dominican, 
introduced  the  conventual  house,  with  its  common  life  in 
chapel,  hall,  and  dormitory,  its  library  and  tutors.  The 
object-lesson  had  an  immediate  effect.  In  the  second 
half  of  the  thirteenth  century  the  first  colleges  were  founded 
at  Paris  (the  Sorbonne),  Oxford  (Merton),  and  Cambridge 
(Peterhouse). 

As  is  well  known,  the  twelfth  century  saw  a  great  revival 
of  learning  which  affected  medical  and  mathematical 
science,  philosophy,  law,  and  letters.  The  French  schools 
202 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

seemed  to  be  divided  in  their  interest  between  letters,  as 
at  Chartres,  and  philosophy,  as  at  Paris.  But  the  great 
and  popular  instructors  at  Paris  taught  dialectic,  logic, 
theology — in  a  word,  scholasticism;  and  the  practice  of 
Paris  determined  that  of  most  universities  for  the  succeeding 
four  or  five  centuries.  Yet  scholasticism  at  Paris  and  law 
at  Bologna  implied  at  least  a  minimum  of  grammar;  the 
literary  foundation  remained  everywhere.  It  is  true  that 
what  we  should  to-day  call  *  scientific  subjects  '  were 
included  amongst  the  Liberal  Arts,  and  natural  philosophy 
was  read  as  part  of  the  course  for  the  degree  in  arts.  But 
the  method  of  study  preserved  its  bookish  character. 
Science  was  learned  from  encyclopaedias,  works  based  on 
Greek  originals  known  through  Latin  translations ;  these 
elementary  manuals  had  in  some  cases  been  compiled  for 
the  purpose  of  preserving  the  debris  of  ancient  learning, 
sometimes  expressly  to  make  it  unnecessary  to  consult  the 
original  sources.  In  either  case  it  was  science  founded 
not  upon  observation  and  experiment  but  upon  authority, 
in  harmony  with  the  legal  and  theological  methods  of  the 
day.  This  remained  true  in  spite  of  the  friars,  Roger 
Bacon  and  Albertus  Magnus,  and  other  early  students  of 
science  as  now  understood. 

The  art  of  printing  is  a  contribution  of  the  first  rank 
made  by  the  Middle  Ages  to  those  which  followed.  It 
furnishes  some  striking  illustrations  of  the  cardinal  defect 
of  education  as  then  practised,  namely,  the  unquestion- 
ing deference  to  authority,  with  a  correspondingly  slow, 
almost  imperceptible  advance  in  the  content  of  studies. 
The  three  standard  books  on  the  Liberal  Arts  which 
were  in  use  throughout  the  mediaeval  period  were  the 
work  of  Martianus  Capella  (fifth  century),  Cassiodorus 
(sixth  century),    and   Isidore  of  Seville    (seventh  century) 

203 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

respectively.  They  were  in  the  nature  of  brief  and  rudi- 
mentary encyclopaedias.  Of  the  first,  eight  editions  were 
printed  between  1499  and  1599;  the  second  was  printed 
as  late  as  1580.  Isidore's  Origins^  which  was  compiled 
in  order  to  make  it  unnecessary  to  consult  pagan  originals, 
appeared  in  six  or  seven  editions  between  1472  and  1577. 
The  De  Arithmetka  of  Boethius  held  its  place  as  an  authori- 
tative text-book  for  a  thousand  years  after  its  first  appear- 
ance in  502;  the  printed  editions  issued  after  1488  were 
innumerable.  The  standard  text-book  of  universal  history 
was  a  compilation  from  the  Bible,  Livy,  Tacitus,  and  from 
earlier  compilers,  made  about  the  year  417  by  Orosius. 
As  its  title  implied  {Seven  Books  of  Histories  against  the 
Pagans),  its  purpose  was  to  maintain  that  the  Divine 
Providence  was  manifested  in  the  disasters  which  befel 
the  Empire  in  consequence  of  its  paganism,  a  type  of 
controversy  which  was  rife  in  the  fifth  century.  Not 
unnaturally  the  adherents  of  the  old  religion  retorted  by 
blaming  the  Empire's  conversion  to  Christianity.  The 
well-nigh  universal  elementary  text-book  of  grammar  in 
the  mediaeval  period  was  the  work  of  a  fourth-century 
teacher,  ^lius  Donatus,  On  the  Eight  Parts  of  Speech  ; 
it  was  one  of  the  earliest  books  to  be  printed  more  than  a 
millennium  later.  Another  favourite  elementary  grammar 
book  was  the  Doctrinale  of  Alexander  de  Villa  Dei,  produced 
about  the  year  1200;  there  were  two  hundred  and  sixty 
editions  in  whole  or  in  part  printed  between  1470  and 
1520. 

It  should  be  noted  that  all  the  works  above  named 
survived  beyond  the  close  of  the  period  500-1500,  and 
that  they  were  text-books,  not  great  literary  classics — that 
is,  they  survived  not  in  virtue  of  their  purely  literary  merits 
(which  in  truth  were  few),  but  as  exponents  of  knowledge 
204 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

as  it  existed  at  the  times  of  their  publication.  Here  we 
have  the  characteristic  faiUng  of  mediaeval  education  as  it 
was  practised  in  schools  and  universities,  namely,  an  over- 
weening respect  for  authority  as  set  forth  in  the  written 
word.  The  consequence  was  either  comparative  stag- 
nation or  sterilisation ;  these  books  made  no  progress 
beyond  the  stage  at  which  something  had  been  saved  from 
the  ruin  of  Roman  civilisation.  And  this  was  in  spite  of 
the  presence  of  much  educational  machinery  both  of 
institutions  and  of  administration.  It  needed  the  revival 
of  classical  learning  during  the  last  century  or  so  of  our 
period  to  effect  a  drastic  change  which  the  genius  of  indi- 
vidual men  had  failed  to  bring  about. 

In  the  early  days  of  universities,  owing  to  the  com- 
parative scarcity  of  books  and  the  great  cost  of  classical 
and  other  standard  works,  much  of  the  teaching  took  the 
form  of  lecturing  to  large  audiences.  The  lectures  were 
very  frequently  dictation  lessons  for  the  same  reasons ; 
the  practice  became  traditional,  and  was  continued  when 
conditions  made  it  less  excusable.  For  example,  the 
University  of  Louvain,  founded  in  1425,  employed  dis- 
putation and  the  dictation  of  texts,  glosses,  and  commen- 
taries as  late  as  1475;  students  memorised  their  notes  and, 
like  schoolboys,  repeated  them  to  their  instructors.  Dis- 
putation grew  out  of  the  wholesome  method  of  teaching 
by  dialogue,  by  conversation,  by  question  and  answer. 
The  mediaeval  text-books  respected  the  convention  by 
putting  the  questions  in  the  mouths  of  the  learners;  thus, 
in  the  Donat  it  is  the  pupil  who  asks,  "  How  many  parts 
of  speech  are  there  ? "  Scholasticism  in  theology  and 
philosophy  was  elaborated  by  the  method  of  dialectic  or 
disputation ;  and  scholasticism  directed  the  practice  of  the 
universities.     Since  the  formal  exercises  leading  to  a  degree 

205 


MEDIi^VAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

were  steps  in  the  training  of  a  university  teacher,  it  was 
natural  that  disputatio  should  play  a  prominent  part  in 
those  exercises.  The  method  afforded  a  welcome  relief 
from  the  tedium  of  the  lecture ;  so  long  as  it  was  genuine 
it  was  a  better  form  of  teaching,  since  it  required  the  pupil's 
active  participation.  Later  times  kept  up  the  tradition, 
but  turned  the  disputation  into  a  farce.  We  learn  from 
Stow,  the  antiquary,  that  as  late  as  1535-40,  when  he  was 
at  school,  London  boys  on  St  Bartholomew's  Day  disputed 
publicly  in  Smithfield.  The  only  available  material  lay  in 
the  grammar  book ;  and  it  is  safe  to  infer  that  '  exceptions  * 
and  *  exceptions  to  exceptions  '  were  freely  drawn  upon 
by  the  disputants  to  discomfit  opponents.  In  that  case 
these  schoolboy  wranglings  had  their  share  in  creating  the 
belief  that  '  exceptions  '  were  of  far  more  importance  than 
*  rules.* 

The  institutions  thus  far  considered  concerned  them- 
selves with  learning  Latin,  reading  books  written  in  Latin, 
teaching  in  Latin,  and  this  irrespective  of  the  mother- 
tongue  of  teacher  or  taught.  In  other  words,  the  instruc- 
tion which  they  gave  belonged  to  the  spheres  of  what  we 
now  call  secondary  and  higher,  or  university,  education. 
Did  the  Middle  Ages  make  no  contribution  to  popular 
education,  to  teaching  rudiments  in  the  vernacular  without 
reference  to  any  alien  tongue  } 

The  answer  is,  in  the  first  place,  that  public  instruction 
in  reading,  writing,  and  summing  originated  within  that 
period  under  economic  pressure.  It  is  a  mere  prejudice, 
the  child  of  ignorance,  which  ascribes  the  origin  of  this 
kind  of  instruction  to  the  influence  of  Luther,  Knox, 
Calvin,  and  others,  whose  principles  logically  required 
every  child  to  be  able  at  least  to  read.  Principles  are  not 
infrequently  in  advance  of  practice.  Elementary  instruc- 
206 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

ticn  of  this  kind  existed  long  before  the  Reformation 
outside  the  systems  fostered  by  the  Church  and  the  uni- 
versities. 

In  strictness,  it  was  not  the  business  of  the  schools  to 
instruct  in  the  *  three  R's.'  That  part  of  mathematics 
now  found  in  arithmetic  books,  so  far  as  it  then  existed, 
was  regarded  as  a  practical  art,  useful  chiefly  to  tradesmen. 
Reading  meant  the  ability  to  read  Latin  words.  The 
school  had  no  use  for  the  former,  and  it  very  frequently 
expected  the  pupil  to  bring  the  latter  ability  with  him, 
just  as  he  brought  the  ability  to  talk.  But  the  strict  view 
could  not  always  be  maintained  with  respect  to  reading 
and  writing,  arts  which  found  their  way  into  grammar 
schools  and  song  schools.  In  the  later  Middle  Ages  these 
often  were  part  of  the  studies  of  the  lower  forms  occupied 
by  the  *  petties.*  There  were  also  other  and  less  formal 
ways,  chiefly  under  private  teachers,  by  which  children, 
girls  as  well  as  boys,  learned  to  read  and,  less  often,  to 
write. 

The  origin  of  the  elementary  school  as  such  is  to  be 
found  in  the  demand  made  by  commerce  and  industry  for 
junior  clerks  and  for  workmen  who  could  read  and  write 
the  vernacular  and,  in  fewer  instances,  make  out  or  at 
least  understand  a  bill.  Such  schools,  quite  distinct  from 
grammar  or  song  schools,  grew  up  in  the  great  commercial 
and  industrial  centres  during  the  fourteenth  century  in 
Italy  and  in  Germany;  they  appeared  in  England  in  the 
following  century,  when  the  country  passed  from  an  agri- 
cultural to  an  industrial  and  commercial  status. 

While  the  Church  had  no  special  interest  in  this  purely 
utilitarian  instruction,  it  was  not  unmindful  of  the  education 
of  the  great  majority  of  the  people.  Councils  and  indi- 
vidual bishops  admonished  parish  priests  to  keep  schools 

207 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

in  which  all  comers  might  be  taught  gratis.  The  object 
in  view  is  expressed  as  follows  in  a  papal  document  of  the 
second  quarter  of  the  thirteenth  century.  **  Let  every 
parish  priest  have  his  clerk  to  sing  and  to  read  the  epistle 
and  lesson,  a  man  able  to  keep  school  [a  gloss  adds  "  to 
teach  children  the  Psalter  and  singing  "]  and  [let  the 
priest]  admonish  his  parishioners  to  send  their  sons  to 
church  to  learn  the  faith  and  that  he  may  chastely  educate 
them."  The  purpose,  then,  is  religious  and  liturgical ;  and 
it  is  religious  because  it  was  held  that  education  must  be 
a  religious  education,  or,  conversely,  that  religion  is  edu- 
cation. We  can  very  easily  be  unfair  to  our  ancestors  on 
this  point.  After  all,  it  is  no  small  part  of  true  education 
to  teach  and  to  train  a  man  to  act  up  to  his  duty  to  God 
and  his  fellows.  The  great  expansion  of  knowledge, 
especially  of  scientific  knowledge,  during  modern  times 
tempts  us  to  attach  more  than  its  due  importance  to  *  know- 
ledge '  in  a  scheme  of  education.  But  these  parish  schools 
had  possibilities  of  development.  They  were  open  to 
girls  as  well  as  to  boys,  and  their  object  was  not  so  rigidly 
stated  that  there  was  no  room  for  a  particular  interpretation 
of  it  by  a  given  priest  or  his  parishioners.  In  France 
certainly  that  development  took  place ;  the  priests'  or  parish 
schools,  especially  those  in  the  great  towns,  became  in  due 
course  charity  schools,  which  taught  reading  and  writing, 
sometimes  also  summing  and,  more  rarely,  drawing. 

But  again  we  are  unfair  to  the  mediaeval  world  if  we 
regard  its  universities  and  schools  as  its  only  educational 
institutions.  Apart  from  the  parish  schools,  the  mediaeval 
schools  were  addressed  to  the  needs  of  the  scholar  or 
professional  man,  the  theologian,  lawyer,  or  doctor.  Their 
business  was  not  with  girls  or  women,  but  with  boys  and 
men  whose  minds  were  of  the  scholarly  type,  an  elite^  not 
208 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

of  birth  or  of  wealth,  but  of  a  certain  type  of  capacity,  the 
type  which  is  apt  to  arrogate  the  term  *  intellectual  '  to 
itself.  It  did  not  include  a  very  powerful  body  of  persons, 
women  as  well  as  men.  The  man  of  action,  the  soldier, 
the  great  landowner,  the  sovereign  prince,  and  their 
respective  women-folk  received  little  or  no  help  from 
grammar-school  or  university,  though  it  must  not  be 
assumed  that  the  men  and  boys  of  these  social  classes 
never  resorted  to  either. 

The  needs  of  these  men  and  women  *  of  affairs  '  were 
not  coincident  with  those  of  the  clerkly  person.  Further, 
while  one  sort  of  human  excellence  fitted  the  scholar  for 
his  career,  these  men  and  women  could  apply  many  sorts 
of  excellence  in  their  daily  lives.  Moreover,  they  were 
in  a  position  to  give  some  effect  to  their  varied  ideals. 

The  *  chivalric  education,*  as  it  is  called,  was  given 
within  the  domestic  circles  of  the  royal  court,  the  castle, 
and  the  feudal  or  semi-feudal  household  of  the  territorial 
magnate.  The  pupils  in  the  first  instance  were  the  wards 
of  the  head  of  the  house,  but  their  number  was  increased 
by  the  sons  and  daughters  of  his  greater  vassals  and  of 
others  of  similar  rank.  The  system  of  chivalry  was 
certainly  developed  in  the  eleventh  century,  but  its  begin- 
ning can  be  noted  as  early  as  the  eighth.  The  chivalric 
education  existed  down  to  the  close  of  our  period,  when  it 
came  under  the  influence  of  the  classical  revival  and  passed 
into  the  *  doctrine  of  courtesy,'  the  body  of  principles 
which  governed  the  nurture  of  the  socially  distinguished 
for  three  centuries  at  least.  Under  purely  feudal  con- 
ditions the  chivalric  education  of  the  boy  was  largely 
devoted  to  physical  exercise,  to  the  management  of  arms, 
to  horsemanship,  sport,  and  the  outdoor  life  generally. 
The   tournament   was   often   the   occasion   of  great   intcr- 

o  209 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

national  gatherings  of  men  and  women,  who,  irrespective 
of  nationaHty,  were  practised  in  the  etiquette  of  the  tourney 
and  who  could  not  fail  to  educate  and  be  educated  by  the 
daily  intercourse  with  their  fellows.  But  the  education 
of  chivalry  also  included  in  its  sphere  the  social  amenities, 
behaviour  in  hall  and  bower,  table  manners,  and  indoor 
games.  Girls  and  women  shared  this  with  boys  and 
men,  while  the  girls  and  women  also  received  a  practical 
training  in  the  government  of  the  household  and  in  simple 
medicine  and  surgery.  Unlike  the  schools  and  univer- 
sities, the  chivalric  form  of  education  held  vernaculars  in 
honour;  the  early  literatures  of  France  and  of  England 
especially  are  full  of  the  romances  and  poetry  which  helped 
to  shape  the  culture  of  dame  and  knight.  In  its  later 
phase,  the  doctrine  of  courtesy,  the  chivalric  education 
laid  stress  upon  modern  languages,  literatures,  and  history, 
and  upon  modern  studies  as  the  extension  of  knowledge 
gave  them  birth.  In  this  form  courtly  education  had  a 
sounder  claim  to  be  called  '  humanist '  than  could  be  put 
forward  for  some  types  of  upbringing  to  which  that  term 
is  applied  without  hesitation. 

In  sum,  the  Middle  Ages  made  a  substantial  contribu- 
tion to  the  modern  course  of  instruction,  and  in  so  doing  it 
transmitted  a  knowledge  of  the  ancient  civilisation,  so  much 
of  which  had  disappeared  by  the  fifth  century.  The 
mediaeval  curriculum  distinguished  between  professional 
studies  and  general  culture,  the  latter  being  represented 
by  the  faculty  of  arts  in  the  universities;  the  concep- 
tion of  a  general  education  as  the  necessary  preliminary  to 
such  professional  studies  as  theology,  law,  and  medicine 
became  established  at  Oxford  during  the  thirteenth  century. 
The  Middle  Ages  gave  us  public  instruction  on  the  great 

2IO 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

scale,  chiefly  '  secondary  '  in  character,  but  '  elementary  ' 
also,  meaning  by  that  word  instruction  confined  to  the 
*  three  R's  '  and  the  mother-tongue.  The  local  adminis- 
tration of  this  public  instruction  dates  from  the  early  times 
of  the  period  a.d.  500-1500.  Last,  but  by  no  means 
least,  the  ideas  latent  in  the  practice  of  knightly  education 
may  be  applied  directly  to  national  systems  of  universal, 
compulsory  instruction.  Indeed,  these  latter  will  both  fail 
and  involve  prodigious  waste  of  time,  brains,  and  money 
so  long  as  they  ignore  the  root  principle  of  chivalric  edu- 
cation, the  principle  that  every  type  of  human  capacity 
calls  for  cultivation.  It  is  not  enough  that  a  nation  educate 
its  scholars  only. 

Negatively,  this  same  period  of  history  demonstrates 
the  abuse  of  authority  in  education,  an  abuse  especially 
harmful  in  the  field  of  physical  knowledge.  Mediaeval 
science  was  credulous  and  superstitious,  and,  without 
examination,  repeated  the  mistakes  as  well  as  the  truths 
of  an  earlier  age.  This,  however,  is  mediaeval  education 
at  its  worst;  at  its  best  it  trained  men  to  a  critical  temper 
which  in  the  end  proved  the  undoing  of  much  which  was 
characteristic  of  itself. 

J.  W.  Adamson 


21 1 


VIII 

SOCIETY 

A  CERTAIN  French  historian,  M.  Paul  Viollet, 
wrote  a  well-known  book  ■'•  on  the  history  of  the 
political  and  administrative  institutions  of  France, 
mainly  during  the  Middle  Ages.  That  work  is  in  three 
volumes,  and  its  text,  exclusive  of  index,  table  of  contents, 
and  so  on,  fills  more  than  fourteen  hundred  closely  printed 
pages;  its  gradual  publication  extended  over  a  period  of 
thirteen  years;  its  scope  is  wide,  including  Church  and 
State,  royal,  seigniorial,  and  municipal  institutions,  machi- 
nery for  peace  and  machinery  for  war,  finance,  justice,  legis- 
lation. The  author  of  such  a  book  not  only  has  abundant 
material  for  forming  an  historical  creed  of  his  own,  but, 
indeed,  if  he  be  worthy  the  name  of  historian  at  all, 
must  inevitably  do  so.  What,  then,  is  the  belief  to  which 
M.  Viollet's  labours  have  led  him  ? 

"  We  issue,"  he  said,  "  from  the  Middle  Ages.  .  .  . 
The  roots  of  our  modern  society  lie  deep  in  them.  .  .  . 
What  we  are,  we  are,  in  great  measure,  because  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  The  Middle  Ages  are  alive  in  us.  They 
are  alive  all  round  us."  When,  nine  years  after  the  com- 
pletion of  this  first  work,  its  author  published  another, 
relating  to  a  more  modern  period,  his  preface  shows  that 
further  researches  had  only  confirmed  him  in  his  views. 
^  Histoire  des  Institutions  politique  s  et  administratives  de  la  France  {iSgo- 
212 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

"  The  Middle  Ages  were  fertile,"  he  says.  "  They  were 
creative.  .  .  .  Whatever  is  most  living  and  most  resisting  in 
the  national  character  is  inherited.  Modern  society  strikes 
its  roots  deep  into  the  past:  the  dead  are  alive  in  it." 

That  is  a  point  of  view  which  has  been  held  very  generally 
by  historians.  There  is  a  classical,  if  hackneyed,  example 
to  be  found  on  this  side  of  the  Channel,  in  the  much-quoted 
sentences  from  Bishop  Stubbs'  preface  to  his  Constitutional 
History,  "  The  roots  of  the  present  lie  deep  in  the  past, 
and  nothing  in  the  past  is  dead  to  the  man  who  would 
learn  how  the  present  came  to  be  what  it  is." 

The  task  imposed  on  me  is  to  examine  such  a  point  of 
view  especially  in  relation  to  society — to  the  life  of  man 
as  a  social  being,  a  member  of  a  community.  What  does 
modern  society  owe  to  the  Middle  Ages  ^  W'hat  link 
binds  a  man's  life  in  the  twentieth  century  to  that  of  his 
forefathers  in  the  thirteenth  } 

That  is  no  new  question.  It  has  been  asked  again  and 
again.  Historians  in  particular,  perhaps,  have  thought 
about  it,  since  to  them,  whose  minds  dwell  much  in  the 
past,  who,  as  Sir  Thomas  Browne  says,  "  daily  command 
the  view  of  so  many  imperial  faces,"  analogies  and  contrasts 
and  speculations  must  constantly  be  suggesting  themselves. 
But  there  are  few  of  us  who  have  not,  at  some  time  or 
other,  with  more  or  less  seriousness,  with  more  or  less  know- 
ledge, with  more  or  less  genuine  desire  to  seek  truth, 
asked  ourselves  similar  questions :  and  to  them,  no  doubt, 
we  have  found  answers  var)4ng  as  widely  as  our  own 
temperaments. 

The  answers  most  frequently  returned  stand  at  one  or 
other  of  two  opposite  poles. 

One  set  of  inquirers  comes  to  the  conclusion  that 
modern  society  owes  nothing  to  the  Middle  Ages,  except  an 

213 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

instructive  object-lesson  in  what  to  avoid.  They  pillory 
mediaeval  ignorance,  superstition,  brutality,  and  violence, 
the  discomforts  of  mediaeval  life,  and  the  imperfection  of 
mediaeval  manners.  Or  they  patronise  the  Middle  Ages, 
and,  while  denying  them  the  right  to  a  man's  full  stature,  are 
willing  to  admit  the  charm  of  their  childlike  innocence,  and 
their  skill  in  constructing  beautifully  such  toys  as  pleased 
them. 

The  other  set  of  inquirers  takes  a  directly  opposite  line. 
Society  as  we  find  it  now,  they  say,  is  unwholesome,  over- 
complicated, distressed,  and  impotent.  Society  in  the 
Middle  Ages  was  regulated,  finished,  secure  in  its  own 
outlook,  satisfied  with  its  works  and  ways.  Salvation  lies 
in  a  return  to  the  past.  The  world  of  to-day  is  covered 
with  the  hot  lava  of  an  eruption :  we  must  make  it  anew, 
with  its  cool  streams  and  green  hillsides,  as  it  was  before 
it  underwent  that  ordeal  by  fire. 

Among  the  enemies,  or  patrons,  of  mediaeval  civilisation 
there  are  undoubtedly  some  great  names.  If  you  read, 
for  example,  the  Lowell  Lectures^  which  the  late  Provost 
of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  delivered  at  Boston  some  years 
ago,  you  will  find  that,  not  content  with  describing  to  his 
American  audience  very  finely,  very  justly,  very  impres- 
sively, the  services  rendered  to  modern  civilisation  by  the 
Greek  genius,  he  constantly,  by  implication  or  by  direct 
assertion,  derides  and  belittles  the  contributions  made  by 
the  Middle  Ages.  He  speaks  of  the  way  in  which  "  the 
gloomy  splendour  of  Dante,  the  mightiest  outcome  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  had  put  out  the  cheerfulness  and  light  of 
Greek  life,  even  as  Virgil  understood  them,  with  a  cruel 
and  relentless  creed."     He  contrasts  the  Gothic  cathedral, 

^  J.  P.  MahaiFy,  What  have  the  Greeks  done  for  Modern  Civilisation  ? 
(1909). 

214 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

"  the  ideal  gloom,"  as  he  says,  "  in  which  to  worship  a 
relentless  God  and  a  tortured  Christ,"  with  the  Renaissance 
palace,  **  a  place  of  light  and  gladness."  Dr  Mahaffy  was 
a  great  scholar,  though  in  other  than  mediaeval  fields. 
So  strong  a  prejudice  in  a  trained  mind  is  rare.  But  there 
are  hundreds  of  people  who  paint  contrasts  just  as  vivid, 
without  having  any  basis  of  scholarship  on  which  to  rest 
them.  Their  main  interest  is  in  the  world  in  which  they 
are  alive.  Possibly,  until  the  classical  tradition  in  edu- 
cation fades  entirely  away,  they  may  continue  to  admit 
that  to  the  making  of  that  world  there  went  something 
glorious  that  was  Greece  and  something  grand  that  was 
Rome.  But  the  Middle  Ages,  the  thousand  years  between 
the  fifth  and  the  fifteenth  century,  represent  to  them  a 
period  in  which  men's  works  were  unproductive  and  men's 
thoughts  incomprehensible,  a  period  of  whose  whole 
character  they  are  vaguely,  and  faintly,  suspicious. 

One  of  the  disciples  of  guild  socialism  devotes  a  whole 
chapter  in  his  most  recent  book^  to  what  he  calls  "the 
conspiracy  against  mediaevalism."  "  Among  a  certain 
class  of  writers,"  he  says,  **  it  is  the  custom  to  designate 
as  mediaeval  anything  which  they  do  not  understand  or  of 
which  they  do  not  approve,  quite  regardless  of  the  issue  as 
to  whether  it  actually  existed  in  the  Middle  Ages  or  not." 
The  accusation  may  stand  if  it  is  modified.  There  is  no 
conspiracy,  surely.  There  is  nothing  so  definite,  no  such 
armed  enemy  to  detect  and  arrest.  What  there  is  is 
indifference,  vague  terminology,  and  uninformed  repetition 
of  meaningless  phrases.  Even  a  slight  acquaintance  at 
first  hand  with  the  Middle  Ages  as  they  really  were  ought 
to  destroy  generalisations  so  sweeping. 

Let  us  turn,  then,  to  the  other  set  of  inquirers,   those 

»  A.  J.  Penty,  A  Gui/Jsman's  Interpretation  of  History  (1920). 

215 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

to  whom  the  mediaeval  construction  of  society  represents 
a  lost  ideal.  That  school  of  thought  began  with  Ruskin; 
William  Morris  carried  on  the  tradition ;  and  to-day  the 
guild  socialists  have  taken  up  the  torch.  It  is  only  quite 
recently  that  most  of  us  have  added  '  guild  socialism  '  to  our 
vocabulary  of  political  terms ;  and  we  are  apt  to  forget  that 
the  views  of  the  guild  socialists,  propagated  vigorously 
since  the  War,  were  conceived  long  before  the  War,  and  are 
linked  very  closely  with  the  whole  process  of  thought 
which  started  in  Ruskin's  lifetime.  One  of  the  earliest 
expositions  of  guild  socialism  was  set  forth  in  1 906,  in  a 
little  square  book  which,  with  its  decent  coat  of  dark  blue 
buckram,  its  wide  margins,  firm  paper,  and  admirable 
type,  recalls  even  in  its  physical  appearance  the  works  of 
William  Morris.^  There  is  a  much  more  intimate  mental 
connexion.  The  modern  flame,  indeed,  burns  with  a 
harsher  and  more  glaring  light  than  Ruskin's,  but  it  is 
fed  by  the  same  fuel.  Time  has  developed  an  attitude  of 
mind  into  a  political  creed,  and  the  social  crisis  hastened 
by  the  War  has  led  its  exponents  to  offer  their  theory  as 
a  practical  solution  of  present  ills.  But  the  spirit  that 
informs  the  dogma  has  been  the  same  throughout. 

Broadly  speaking,  the  idea  of  the  guild  socialists  is  to 
reorganise  modern  industry  on  lines  similar  to  those  which 
they  believe  existed  in  the  Middle  Ages.  They  select  as 
most  characteristic  of  mediaeval  society  the  organisation 
of  guilds ;  and  guilds  they  would  restore  in  the  world  of 
to-day.  But,  as  they  admit,  such  guilds  would  differ 
from  their  mediaeval  predecessors  in  at  least  two  important 
respects.  In  the  first  place,  their  organisation  would  be 
national,  not  local;  in  the  second,  their  basis  would  be 
the  trade  unions,  which  have  no  historical  continuity  with 

'  A.  J.  Penty,  The  Restoration  of  the  Gild  System. 
216 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

the  mediaeval  guilds,  and  are  in  some  ways  markedly 
contrasted  with  them,  since  they  are  societies  of  workers, 
not  of  masters,  have  no  monopoly  in  their  respective  trades, 
and  take  no  responsibility  for  the  quality  of  the  wares  they 
produce. 

The  guild  socialist  movement,  then,  is  in  the  main 
economic,  and  its  most  important  aspect  lies  altogether 
outside  the  scope  of  the  present  lecture.  But  the  advocates 
of  the  movement  would  be  the  first  to  claim  that  it  involves 
wide  social  issues.  '*  It  has  been  well  described,"  says  one 
of  them,  **  as  a  religion,  an  art,  a  philosophy,  with  economic 
feet."  "  The  majority  of  people  to-day,"  he  says  else- 
where, "  feeling  that  the  tendency  of  modern  civilisation 
is  to  add  more  to  the  sorrow  than  to  the  joy  of  life,  are 
beginning  to  ask  themselves  what  Carlyle  and  Ruskin 
were  asking  themselves  fifty  years  ago — whither  modern 
civilisation  goeth.  .  .  .  The  failure  of  modern  society  to 
realise  itself  will  result  in  an  effort  toward  finding  lost 
roads.  The  people  will  come  to  connect  the  Golden  Age 
with  the  past  again,  rather  than  with  the  future.  .  .  . 
A  reverence  for  the  past,  then,  is  the  hope  of  the  future." 

No  mediaeval  historian  is  likely  to  belittle  the  work  of 
Ruskin  and  of  Morris.  He  must  recognise  in  them  pre- 
eminently two  qualities — complete  sincerity  and  a  passion 
for  beauty.  They  led  a  crusade  where  it  was  sorely  needed, 
and  they  won  some  bitter  fights.  They  left  the  world 
lovelier  than  they  found  it — "  surely  that  may  be  their 
epitaph  of  which  they  need  not  be  ashamed."  And  in 
their  modern  disciples,  too,  there  is  the  same  earnestness, 
the  same  revolt  against  squalor  and  ugliness,  the  same 
idealism. 

Yet  even  the  mediaeval  historian — indeed,  perhaps 
particularly  the  mediaeval  historian — is  driven  reluctantly 

217 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

to  criticise  a  certain  unhistorical  and  artificial  outlook  in 
this  school,  to  which  it  might  seem  at  first  sight  that  his 
sympathies  would  be  so  warmly  attracted.  Many  of  its 
disciples  are  mediaevalists  by  instinct  rather  than  by  training, 
and  their  attitude  is  the  result  of  a  combination  of  natural 
affinities  with  carefully  cultivated  tastes.  The  former 
often  lead  them  nearer  to  truth  than  the  latter.  William 
Morris  was  closer  in  type  to  his  mediseval  forebears  when 
Burne-Jones  found  him  "  embedded  in  iron,  dancing  with 
rage,  and  roaring,"  because  the  vizor  of  a  helmet  he  was 
trying  on  had  come  down  and  refused  to  go  up,  than 
when  Rossetti  visited  his  house  in  Red  Lion  Square  and 
discovered  him  surrounded  by  "  intensely  mediaeval 
furniture  "  and  **  chairs  such  as  Barbarossa  might  have 
sat  in." 

The  historian  who  reads  the  works  of  this  school  is 
constantly  brought  up  short  by  the  unreality  of  the  picture 
presented  to  him.  When  he  finds  William  Morris  talking 
of  London,  '*  small,  and  white,  and  clean,"  he  remembers 
mediaeval  London  as  he  has  met  it  in  record  and  chronicle, 
with  its  muddy  lanes  and  filthy  gutters,  its  dirt  and  disease, 
its  gates  bristling  with  the  heads  of  criminals,  its  jostling 
and  rioting  crowds.  When  Mr  A.  J.  Penty  tells  him  that 
"  bureaucracy  was  a  peculiarly  Roman  institution,  and 
hardly  existed  in  the  Middle  Ages,"  he  thinks  of  English 
constitutional  history  as  it  has  been  rewritten  during  the 
last  twenty  years  in  the  light  of  fuller  knowledge  of  the 
records  of  these  bureaucratic  offices  which  managed — or 
mismanaged — the  affairs  of  mediaeval  kings  and  kingdoms. 
The  enthusiasts  tell  him  that  "  according  to  the  old  con- 
ception, art,  religion,  ideas,  integrity  of  work,  the  pursuit 
of  perfection,  were  looked  upon  as  the  serious  things  of 
life,  while  business  and  money-making  were  subservient 
218 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

things,  considered  relatively  unimportant,  for  men  had  a 
reverence  for  the  truth  and  abhorrence  for  the  false."  The 
historian  would  be  glad  to  believe  it,  but  if  he  is  to  preserve 
his  own  respect  for  truth,  he  must  say  sadly  that  such  a 
theory  of  an  altruistic  and  ideal  society  is  utterly  at  variance 
with  the  Middle  Ages  as  he  sees  them  in  their  writings 
and  their  doings.  There  is  no  such  simple  formula  to 
explain  their  infinite  variety.  He  must  say  rather  with 
Sabatier  that  the  Middle  Ages  had  every  vice  and  every 
virtue,  "  every  vice,  except  vulgarity,  every  virtue,  except 
moderation." 

But  it  is  time  that  we  forsook  destructive  for  constructive 
criticism.  If  the  contribution  of  the  Middle  Ages  to 
modern  society  was  neither  to  act  as  a  dreadful  warning, 
nor  to  serve  as  an  ideal  for  imitation,  what  was  it  ? 

It  was,  I  think,  something  gradual  and  rather  elusive. 
It  consisted  in  a  long  and  slow  process  of  historical  develop- 
ment, which  prepared  the  way  for  the  structure  of  modern 
society.  It  can  be  best  represented  by  that  favourite 
metaphor,  of  whose  use  by  historians  I  have  already  quoted 
two  examples.  "  Modern  society  strikes  its  roots  deep 
into  the  past,"  said  M.  Viollet.  "  The  roots  of  the  present 
lie  deep  in  the  past,"  said  Stubbs. 

That  is  a  very  exact  metaphorical  description,  and  can 
be  pressed  and  elaborated  in  a  way  few  metaphors  could 
bear.  The  Middle  Ages  produced,  in  lavish  quantity,  a 
flora  all  their  own.  What  it  was  like  we  know  partly 
by  description,  partly  by  rare  survival,  partly  by  certain 
specimens  artificially  preserved.  Many  of  its  characteristic 
examples  died  out  altogether.  A  gorgeous  blossom  of 
theory  like  the  Empire,  for  example,  weighed  down  and 
snapped  a  stem  of  practice  too  slender  to  uphold  it.  Fruits 
that  had  seemed  at  first  tempting  and  sustaining  became 

219 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

in  the  end  insipid  or  even  poisonous.  Feudalism,  for 
instance,  first  became  the  mere  shadow  of  itself  in  chivalry, 
and  then  ceased  altogether  to  meet  man's  needs.  Some 
trees  grev/  so  tall  that  other  life  near  them  was  stunted 
and  stifled — so  it  was  with  the  world-power  of  the  Papacy. 
By  the  end  of  the  mediaeval  period  what  had  once  been  a 
fair  garden  was  rank  and  in  confusion.  Natural  decay, 
the  neglect  of  the  cultivator,  the  tramplings  of  enemies, 
the  thefts  of  the  greedy,  the  strong  pushing  of  weeds 
among  the  flowers,  had  played  havoc  with  what  was  at 
first  sweet-smelling,  orderly,  and  vigorous.  Clearing  and 
burning  followed,  before  new  seeds  could  be  set. 

But — and  here  is  my  point — it  was  into  the  old  soil 
that  those  seeds  were  dropped,  and  the  soil  was  richer, 
warmer,  and  more  fertile  than  raw  uncultivated  ground. 
Moreover,  in  its  very  substance  were  the  remnants  of  the 
plants  which  had  sprung  from  it.  The  new  roots  spread 
themselves  in  the  mould  of  centuries.  And  further,  even 
while  the  displaced  plants  were  still  in  full  vigour,  they 
had  had  beside  them  seedlings  different  in  type  from  the 
parent  tree.  Now  that  the  clearance  had  been  made, 
these  had  their  chance,  and  soon  were  spreading  their 
flowers  so  gaily  to  the  sunshine  that  men  failed  to 
recognise  in  them  the  offspring  of  the  plants  they  had 
destroyed. 

The  fact  was  that  all  through  the  Middle  Ages  two 
processes  were  going  on.  One  was  immediately  con- 
structive, and  by  it  was  made  the  prevailing  type  of  civi- 
lisation which  we  call  mediaeval,  and  which  reached  its 
most  complete  form  during  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries.  To  meet  the  practical  needs  of  life  it  evolved 
feudalism,  and,  with  feudalism,  a  society  in  which  men 
were  ranged  in  order  of  privilege  according  to  their 
220 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

greater  or  smaller  share  in  that  chief  wealth,  the  land. 
That  method  of  construction  produced  a  world  in  which 
large  groups  of  human  beings  were  inarticulate  and 
unnoticed,  blotted  out  from  historical  view  by  the  com- 
manding figures  of  earls,  barons,  and  knights  who  stood  in 
front  of  them.  The  only  lay  type  we  know  well  in  feudal 
society  seems  extraordinarily  remote  from  anything  familiar 
to  us  to-day.  The  duties,  prejudices,  recreations,  code  of 
honour,  and  works  of  piety  of  the  average  feudal  baron 
seem  as  different  from  those  which  present  themselves  to 
the  average  man  of  this  age  as  the  feudal  castle  is  different 
from  the  modern  house. 

The  immediate  process,  then,  constructed  something 
unfamiliar  to  us,  which  has  passed  away.  Yet  what  we 
are  is  based  on  what  we  were,  and  even  with  that  vanished 
civilisation  we  have  more  links  than  we  always  realise. 
That  is  the  first  part  of  my  metaphor,  the  soil  in  which  the 
roots  are  spread. 

The  second  process,  which  it  is  easy  to  overlook,  was 
going  on  side  by  side  with  the  other  even  in  the  heart  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  There  never  was  a  time  when  the 
order  of  society  which  we  call  mediaeval  was  as  consistent, 
as  unchallenged,  as  complete  as  it  looks  to  us  when  given 
a  false  unity  and  security  by  our  own  remoteness  from  it. 
Experiment  and  criticism  were  unceasing;  theory  and 
practice  never  closely  fitted  each  other;  absolute  uniformity 
was  unknown.  Again  and  again  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
more  and  more  as  we  look  closely  into  them,  we  shall 
find  suggestions,  and  sayings,  and  actions  too,  which  strike 
us  as  amazingly  modern.  That  they  do  strike  us  in  tha 
way  is  because  we  have  that  innocent  and  universal  conceit 
with  which  man  in  every  age  has  regarded  his  own  as  the 
touchstone  of  all  the  rest.     We  reject  what  is  unlike  our 

221 


MEDIi^VAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

own  world  in  the  world  of  the  Middle  Ages  as  antiquated 
and  alien.  What  is  like  our  own,  we  regard  as  the  happy 
prophecy  of  better  things,  vouchsafed  to  a  few  chosen 
spirits.  A  more  historical  view  would  be  to  see  in  such 
examples  the  manifestations  of  a  second  process,  less 
immediately  successful,  working  beside  the  first,  a  minority 
beside  a  majority.  The  minority  is  produced  by  the  age 
it  lives  in  as  much  as  the  majority;  and  its  theories  or  its 
practice,  if  eventually  results  come  of  them,  are  just  as 
much  part  of  the  creative  faculty  of  that  age. 

Let  me  illustrate  my  general  view  of  the  mediaeval 
contribution  to  modern  society  by  taking  a  particular 
instance.  Selecting  from  the  most  modern  of  ages,  that 
in  which  we  live,  the  newest  social  phenomenon  we  can 
find,  let  us  examine  it  in  the  light  of  mediaeval  theory  and 
practice. 

There  is  nothing  much  newer  in  England's  life  to-day 
than  the  removal  by  law  of  women's  disqualifications  from 
sharing  to  the  full  in  the  obligations  and  privileges  long 
confined  to  men.  There  has  been  an  immense  and  general 
upheaval  of  opinion  as  to  women  and  their  place  in  the 
world,  and  it  has  taken  this  practical  shape.  So  much  for 
1920.  What  would  1220,  or  1320,  have  thought  about 
it? 

The  general  theory  of  the  Middle  Ages  undoubtedly 
conceived  of  woman's  position  in  society  as  completely 
subordinate.  Hear  St  Thomas  Aquinas,  greatest  of 
mediaeval  teachers,  supreme  embodiment  of  the  mediaeval 
spirit. 

"  The  woman  is  subject  to  the  man,  on  account  of  the 
weakness  of  her  nature,  both  of  mind  and  of  body.  .  .  . 
Man  is  the  beginning  of  woman  and  her  end,  just 
as  God  is  the  beginning  and  end  of  every  creature. 
222 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

.  .  .  Woman  is  in  subjection  according  to  the  law  of 
nature,  but  a  slave  is  not."  Finally,  and  perhaps  most 
astonishing  of  all,  "  Children  ought  to  love  their  father 
more  than  their  mother."  ■•• 

Much  mediaeval  history  shows  us  women  accepting  and 
endorsing  that  official  estimate  of  their  importance.  Take, 
for  example,  the  case  of  a  lady  who  in  1301  was  prioress 
of  the  Cistercian  nunnery  at  Whistones,  on  the  north  side 
of  the  city  of  Worcester.  Archbishop  Winchelsey,  in  that 
year,  was  about  to  undertake  a  visitation  of  the  diocese  of 
Worcester,  and  had  instructed  the  bishop  to  summon 
clergy  and  people  to  meet  him  in  the  cathedral  church  on 
a  certain  day  in  March.  The  bishop  accordingly  sent 
notices  to  the  cathedral  chapter,  to  the  collegiate  churches, 
and  to  the  monasteries,  and  among  the  latter  to  Whistones. 
What  did  the  prioress  do  ?  She  wrote  to  the  archbishop 
to  explain  that  on  that  day  the  convent  chaplain  would 
act  as  its  representative,  "  since  it  is  not  fitting  that 
women  should  mix  themselves  up  with  men's  meetings."  ^ 
The  occasion,  be  it  remembered,  was  one  of  great  import- 
ance, possibly  of  danger,  for  religious  communities  in  the 
diocese;  the  convent  was  close  at  hand,  so  that  there  was 
no  question  of  travel  or  expense;  but  it  was  "  not  fitting 
that  women  should  mix  themselves  up  with  men's  meet- 
ings," so  she  stood  aside. 

That  is,  perhaps,  hardly  a  fair  example,  for  in  the  case  of 
a  man  there  were  special  conditions  to  be  taken  into  account. 
Yet  the  chronicles,  the  records,  the  romances,  and  the 
poems  of  the  Middle  Ages  give  a  general  impression  that 

1  Summa  Theologice,  I,  iciii,  4,  II,  pt.  2,  xxvi,  10,  Supp.  xiiir,  3, 
Ixixi,  3.     I  owe  these  references  to  Mrs  M.  Beer. 

*  Rose  Graham,  "  The  Metropolitical  Visitation  of  the  Diocese  of 
Worcester,  1301  "  {Trans.  Royal  Hist.  Soc,  Fourth  Scries,  ii,  66). 

223 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

most  mediaeval  women  would  have  taken  the  same  point 
of  view  as  the  prioress  of  Whistones.  ^They  performed 
their  own  duties  adequately,  they  received  a  great  deal  of 
outward  respect,  they  may  have  found  life  on  the  whole 
rather  dull,  and  they  did  not  meddle  with  what  did  not 
concern  them.  The  first  process  of  construction,  that  is 
to  say,  had  produced  a  theory  in  marked  contrast  with  that 
held  by  the  world  of  to-day  and  a  practice  in  many  cases 
consonant  with  that  theory. 

Yet,  if  we  care  to  look  below  the  surface,  we  shall  find 
a  second  process  also  at  work.  We  shall  find  that  not  even 
all  theorists  thought  alike,  and  that  practice  did  not  always 
fit  the  more  usual  theory.  Position  counted,  and  brains 
counted ;  even  in  a  woman  ;  even  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
heiress  to  a  great  fief,  for  example,  was  a  person  of  import- 
ance and  independence,  and,  if  she  added  personality  to 
her  other  endowments,  might  act  with  considerable  freedom. 
A  few  real  individualities  of  this  sort  stand  out  against  that 
rather  impersonal  background  to  which  our  imperfect 
knowledge  of  the  Middle  Ages  at  present  condemns  us. 
Such,  for  example,  was  Joan  of  Acre,  second  surviving 
daughter  of  Edward  I.  Joan  lived  for  thirty-five  years  only, 
for  she  was  born  the  year  her  father  came  to  the  English 
throne,  and  she  died  the  year  he  left  it.  Yet  that  short 
space  was  long  enough  to  show  her  mettle,  and  to  differen- 
tiate her  from  more  conventional  women.  At  twenty-five 
she  was  left  a  widow  by  the  death  of  the  elderly  Earl  of 
Gloucester,  to  whom  she  had  been  married  for  political 
reasons.  For  similar  reasons,  Edward  I  was  on  the  point 
of  arranging  a  second  marriage  for  her,  when  she  confronted 
him  boldly  with  a  statement  that  she  intended  this  time 
to  marry  the  man  of  her  own  choice,  who  happened  to 
be  a  mere  knight,  Ralph  of  Monthermer.  He  stood  right 
224 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

outside  the  narrow  circle  of  great  earls  and  barons,  and 
Edward  I  could  find  no  words  strong  enough  in  which  to 
express  his  opinion  of  Ralph's  ineligibility  for  such  a  match. 
But  Joan,  says  the  Opus  Chronicorum,  argued  the  point 
vigorously.  '*  It  is  not  humiliating  or  disgraceful,"  she 
said,  "  for  some  great  and  powerful  earl  to  marry  some  poor 
and  unimportant  little  woman ;  and  so,  contrariwise,  for  a 
countess  it  is  neither  blameworthy  nor  difficult  to  promote 
a  strenuous  youth."  She  followed  up  words  by  deeds, 
and,  after  a  first  tremendous  explosion  of  anger,  Edward  I 
accepted  the  situation  and  gave  to  the  second  husband  that 
same  title.  Earl  of  Gloucester,  which  the  first  had  held. 

A  less  well-known  example  of  Joan's  courage  and  inde- 
pendence occurred  in  1305,  when  her  young  brother 
Edward,  Prince  of  Wales,  fell  under  the  displeasure  of  his 
father,  who  cut  off  all  supplies.  The  Prince's  only  idea 
of  meeting  this  situation  was  to  write  lamentable  letters  to 
his  friends  and  relatives,  and  to  trail  miserably  about  the 
country,  as  near  as  he  dared  to  the  court,  in  the  hope  of 
some  sudden  relenting  on  the  King's  part.  A  good  many 
people  wrote  sympathetic  letters,  or  invited  the  Prince 
to  visit  them,  but  the  only  person  who  took  practical 
measures  was  his  sister  Joan.  She  placed  at  his  disposal 
all  her  goods,  and  all  her  husband's,  and  she  sent  him  her 
seal,  by  means  of  which  he  might  be  able  to  secure  much  that 
would  not  have  been  forthcoming  at  his  own  discredited 
order. ^  She  risked,  that  is  to  say,  in  eager  partisanship, 
all  that  she  had  gradually  recovered  of  her  father's  favour. 
Fortunately  the  trouble  blew  over  within  a  month  or  two. 

Turning  from  the  world  of  the  court  and  castle  to  the 
world  of  learning,  there  too  we  can  find  instances  of  women's 
activities.     As  early  as  the  eleventh  century  more  than  one 

•   Exchequer  Miscellanea,  5/2,  m.  7. 

P  225 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

woman  doctor  was  practising,  lecturing,  and  writing  in 
the  medical  school  at  Salerno  in  Italy.  Two  hundred  years 
afterwards,  Pierre  Dubois,  a  French  lawyer,  was  foreshadow- 
ing the  modern  medical  missionary  by  suggesting  that 
women  should  be  taught  languages,  surgery,  medicine, 
and  the  rubrics  and  canons  of  the  Church,  as  a  preliminary 
to  work  in  the  East.  It  is  only  fair  to  add  that  Pierre 
Dubois  was  full  of  ideas  which  astounded  his  contem- 
poraries. Moreover,  his  ends  were  more  mediaeval  than 
his  means.  He  wanted  to  recover  the  Holy  Land.  His 
women  doctors  were  to  marry  intelligent  infidels  or  schis- 
matics, cure  their  bodily  diseases  first,  and  then  take 
advantage  pf  their  gratitude  to  wheedle  them  out  of  their 
theological  errors. 

Coming  to  a  very  recent  and  controversial  question,  the 
ministry  of  women,  there  is  matter  for  thought  in  a  tale 
told  by  the  St  Alban's  monk,  Roger  of  Wendover,^  at 
the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century.  It  is  as  follows : 
There  lived  somewhere  in  Burgundy  a  certain  maiden  who 
had  all  the  advantages  the  world  could  give  her — noble 
parents,  riches,  and  the  promise  of  a  desirable  marriage. 
'*  But  from  early  youth,"  says  the  chronicle,  "  she  had  been 
instructed  in  liberal  studies,"  and  when  the  time  of  her 
wedding  came  unpleasantly  near  she  slipped  away  to  take 
refuge,  not  in  a  nunnery,  but  in  a  convent  of  Franciscan 
friars.  She  cut  off  her  hair,  put  on  the  serge  habit  and 
rope  girdle,  went  barefoot,  and  tried  (but,  says  legend, 
quite  unsuccessfully)  to  do  away  with  all  her  natural 
attractions.  No  austerity  was  too  great  for  her,  no  prayer 
too  lengthy,  no  task  too  hard.  She  "  preached  the  Gospel 
of  Peace  through  cities  and  villages,  more  particularly  to 
those  of  her  own  sex."  The  biography  has  no  final  chapter, 
1  FloHs  Hist..,  iv,  ro8-ii2  (Eng,  Hist.  Soc), 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

for  no  one  told  Roger  of  Wendover  the  end  of  it ;  but,  as  he 
truly  said,  what  he  had  related  already  was  quite  sufficient. 

The  way  in  which  the  St  Alban's  monk  tells  that  story 
is  itself  instructive.  He  lifts  his  hands  in  admiration  of 
his  heroine's  saintliness,  but  he  does  not  raise  his  eyebrows 
in  astonishment  at  the  peculiarity  of  her  career.  Not  a 
word  in  his  account  suggests  that  he  regarded  that  feature 
of  the  story  as  curious,  abnormal,  or  interesting.  We 
should  think  his  attitude  an  evidence  of  the  indifference 
of  the  mediaeval  mind  to  breaches  of  accepted  etiquette,  if 
it  were  not  that  we  have  an  immense  number  of  examples 
in  other  connexions  which  prove  the  exact  opposite. 

At  any  rate,  whatever  Roger  of  Wendover's  views  may 
have  been,  that  lady — if,  indeed,  she  ever  existed — was 
certainly  an  exception  to  rules.  She  falls  into  line  with 
other  instances,  some  of  which  I  have  given,  many  more 
of  which  could  be  found,  of  women  whose  opportunities 
and  ambitions  were  far  wider  than  was  usual  in  the  age  in 
which  they  lived.  Add  to  such  practical  examples  the 
theorising  of  Dubois  and  others,  and  you  have  an  illus- 
tration of  the  second  part  of  my  metaphor.  The  seedlings 
are  growing  beside  the  parent  plant,  but  they  are  so  unlike 
it  as  to  be  hardly  recognisable.  For  the  time  being,  they 
remain  almost  unnoticed ;  but  by  and  by,  when  the  shadow 
of  the  stronger  growth  is  removed,  they  will  shoot  up  and 
call  attention  to  themselves.  Women  doctors,  women 
preachers,  women  at  liberty  to  develop  their  own  talents 
and  tastes,  were  rare  phenomena  in  the  Middle  Ages ;  but 
they  were  there.  Moreover,  their  presence  might  be  of 
real  historical  importance.  Let  me  quote  you  in  illustra- 
tion of  that  a  passage  from  Dr  Rashdall's  Universities  of 
Europe  in  the  Middle  Ages}     He  has  been  describing  the 

*    Vol.  ii,  pt.  2,  p.  712. 

227 


MEDIiEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

way  in   which   precedents  were   sought  in   the   mediaeval 
university  system,  and  illustrates  his  point  as  follows  : 

The  University  of  London,  after  being  empowered  by 
royal  charter  to  do  all  things  that  could  be  done  by  any 
university,  was  legally  advised  that  it  could  not  grant  degrees 
to  women  without  a  fresh  charter,  because  no  university  had 
ever  granted  such  degrees.  We  have  seen  that  there  were 
women  doctors  at  Salerno. 

In  a  footnote  he  adds  : 

I  have  been  informed  by  an  eminent  judge  who  was  one 
of  the  counsel  on  whose  advice  the  university  acted,  that 
a  knowledge  of  this  fact  would  have  modified  his  opinion. 

The  position  of  women,  then,  may  serve  on  the  whole 
as  an  illustration  of  my  general  contention — that  the 
Middle  Ages  on  the  one  hand  evolved  a  social  order  of  their 
own,  different  from,  but  linked  to,  the  social  order  familiar 
to  us  to-day ;  while  on  the  other  hand  they  made  suggestions 
and  experiments  to  which  the  modern  world  would  respond 
more  readily  than  the  mediaeval. 

That  is  a  single  illustration.  There  are  others.  There 
are  many  others.  There  are  more  than  we  know  of, 
or  shall  know  of,  until  we  have  carried  our  investigations 
of  mediaeval  conditions  much  farther  than  any  point  as 
yet  reached.  Before  that  can  be  done,  there  will  have  to 
be  a  general  and  sincere  recognition  of  two  facts,  at  present 
very  imperfectly  realised.  The  first  is,  that  the  study  of 
the  Middle  Ages  is  not  an  antiquarian  pursuit,  quite 
unconnected  with  present-day  interests  and  problems;  it 
is  the  examination  of  a  stage  as  essential  as  any  other  to  the 
making  of  the  world  we  live  in.  The  second  is,  that  our 
knowledge  of  that  stage  at  present  lags  behind  our  know- 
ledge of  others,  because  there  are  not  as  yet  nearly  enough 
workers  in  the  field  of  mediaeval  history. 

228 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

Let  me  conclude  by  examining  a  little  more  in  detail 
these  two  statements.  To  the  first,  witness  is  being  borne 
by  the  whole  series  of  lectures  of  which  this  is  a  part. 
Moreover,  the  fact  perhaps  needs  less  demonstration  by 
argument  than  it  would  have  done  six  years  ago.  We 
have  been  fighting  a  war  on  fields  well  known  to  English- 
men of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries ;  in  the  course 
of  it  we  have  tried  some  experiments  which  differed  in  degree 
rather  than  in  kind  from  some  they  knew  well ;  and  we  are 
now  faced  with  a  social  reconstruction  of  a  sort  which 
suggests  at  every  turn  comparisons  with  the  mediaeval 
world.  Shall  we  ever  again  be  as  national,  or  as  insular, 
as  we  were  before  19 14  ?  Do  we  not  hear  talk  on  every 
hand  of  internationalism,  and  is  not  our  class  warfare 
organising  itself  on  lines  that  recall  those  horizontal  strata 
of  mediaeval  society  ?  The  social  chain  of  the  mediaeval 
world  did  indeed  bind  in  mutual  dependence  different 
classes  in  a  single  country:  but  in  mutual  affection  and 
co-operation  it  bound  each  class  to  the  same  class  all  over 
Western  Europe.  Again,  take  the  question  of  travel  and 
transport,  so  vital  in  its  importance  to  a  community.  Are 
not  our  roads  and  our  rivers  being  utilised  to  an  extent 
unparalleled  since  the  introduction  of  steam  traction  ?  The 
motor-lorry,  indeed,  is  an  animal  both  swifter  and  uglier  than 
the  mediaeval  packhorse,  but  he  serves  the  same  purposes. 
Of  late  years  we  have  tasted  by  personal  experience  some 
minor  mediaeval  discomforts.  We  have  stumbled  through 
unlighted,  and  unmended,  streets ;  we  have  gone  to  bed 
betimes  of  necessity,  and  not  of  choice;  we  have  done 
without  numbers  of  things  which  under  peaceful  modern 
conditions  seemed  the  normal  accompaniments  of  every- 
day life.  Finally,  across  the  Irish  Sea  at  this  moment 
scenes  are  being  enacted  which  recall  the  Middle  Ages  at 

229 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

their  worst.  Men  are  standing  by  inactive  while  their 
fellows  are  murdered  before  their  eyes,  just  as  men  stood 
and  watched  while  the  Treasurer  of  England  was  done  to 
death  in  London  in  1327,  or  while  many  another  victim, 
more  obscure,  perished  niultis  astantibus  et  admirantibus. 

Mediaeval  society,  then,  had  many  features  for  which 
we  may  be  half  prepared  by  what  we  ourselves  have  seen 
and  heard.  For  thorough  investigation,  of  course,  we 
should  have  to  add  to  that  general  interest  the  examina- 
tion of  huge  masses  of  manuscript  material,  the  technical 
training  which  is  preliminary  to  such  an  examination,  and 
the  patience,  concentration,  and  enthusiasm  required  for  any 
serious  occupation. 

It  is  the  enthusiasm  which  is  chiefly  lacking.  The 
material,  and  the  training,  are  readily  accessible.  I  speak 
to  you  in  a  college  to  which  the  University  of  London  has 
assigned  its  only  chair  of  mediaeval  history.  Close  at  hand 
is  the  Public  Record  Office,  with  such  a  store  of  material 
for  the  history  of  mediaeval  England  as  can  hardly  be 
described  in  language  which  will  not  seem  exaggerated. 
Before  next  year  is  far  advanced,  we  shall  have  in  Blooms- 
bury  the  modest  beginnings  of  what  in  time  will  be,  I  trust, 
one  of  the  most  important  centres  of  historical  studies  in 
England.  Among  those  studies  mediaeval  subjects  should 
play  their  proper  part;  they  can  only  do  so  if  there  are 
forthcoming  both  workers  prepared  to  labour  in  those  fields, 
and  endowments  to  facilitate  their  labours. 

And  when  we  have  our  workers,  and  the  tools  are  ready 
to  their  hands,  and  their  task  is  on  the  way  to  accomplish- 
ment, what  shall  we  have  secured  }  First,  clearer  know- 
ledge of  the  past ;  next,  clearer  vision  for  the  future.  The 
Middle  Ages,  we  have  said,  had  every  vice  and  every 
virtue;  and  among  the  virtues  none  was  greater  than  the 
230 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

energy  with  which  they  concentrated  upon  realising  their 
ideals.  Let  them,  then,  leave  us  that  legacy.  Let  us  bring 
to  the  solution  of  our  own  problems  the  patience  and  the 
passion  they  brought  to  theirs.  We  can  find  our  deter- 
mination voiced  for  us,  once  for  all,  not  indeed  by  a  man 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  but  by  a  man  who  was  heir  of  all 
the  ages : 

Bring  me  my  bow  of  burning  gold! 
Bring  me  my  arrows  of  desire ! 
Bring  me  my  spear;   Q  clouds,  unfold  ! 
Bring  me  my  chariot  of  fire  ! 

I  will  not  cease  from  mental  fight, 
Nor  shall  my  sword  sleep  in  my  hand. 
Till  we  have  built  Jerusalem 
In  England's  green  and  pleasant  land. 

Hilda  Johnstone 


231 


IX 

ECONOMICS  1 

IN  the  Middle  Ages  it  was  the  fashion  for  every  good 
chronicler  to  begin  a  history  of  his  own  time  with  an 
account  of  the  creation  of  the  world  ;  even  in  this  chilly 
age  of  scientific  research  there  is  still  something  to  be  said 
in  favour  of  this  principle,  for  by  so  doing  it  is  possible  to 
explain  the  present  by  the  past,  to  emphasise  in  the  past 
those  tendencies  which  we,  looking  back  with  the  superior 
wisdom  of  a  later  century,  know  are  going  to  mould  the 
mind  of  the  present,  determine  its  political  likes  and 
dislikes,  and  fashion  the  main  lines  of  its  economic  life. 
This  may  offend  the  sense  of  those  historians  who  hold 
that  history  should  be  written  with  a  mind  swept  clear  of 
all  knowledge  of  after  events,  but  all  the  same  it  produces 
valuable  results  :  it  brings  into  relief  what  is  really  permanent 
in  the  life  of  a  people,  it  marks  out  the  lines  along  which  it 
has  progressed  in  the  past,  and,  if  approached  in  an  opti- 
mistic spirit,  it  may  hold  out  some  hope  of  a  tentative 

^  Further  information  can  be  gathered  from  any  standard  text-book. 
Cunningham's  Growth  of  English  Industry  and  Commerce  covers  both  medieval 
and  modern  periods.  Lipson,  Economic  History  of  England,  and  Ashley, 
Economic  History,  both  deal  only  with  the  mediasval  period.  Lipson  is  an 
accurate  and  rather  dull  work  ;  Ashley  is  possibly  not  so  reliable,  but  far  more 
brilliant  and  suggestive.  Ashley's  Economic  Organisation  of  England  is  a 
slight  but  vivid  sketch  of  the  whole  period.  G.  O'Brien's  Mediceval  Economic 
Teaching  is  useful  for  economic  theory.  For  guild  socialism  the  works  of 
G.  D.  H.  Cole  are  valuable,  especially  his  Chaos  and  Order  in  Industry  and 
Self -Government  in  Industry. 

232 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

solution  of  the  problems  of  the  present,  and  even  of  the 
future — at  any  rate,  it  is  often  willing  to  teach  us  what  to 
avoid,  though  we,  far  too  frequently,  turn  a  deaf  ear  to 
its  warnings.  For  the  life  of  a  people  is  continuous,  and 
therefore  its  history  must  show  a  gradual  progress  from 
one  stage  of  existence  to  the  next,  with  few,  if  any,  cata- 
clysmic changes :  every  institution  we  possess,  every  form 
of  industrial  or  commercial  activity,  can  show  a  steady  and 
unbroken  development,  so  that  it  is  strictly  true  to  say 
that  the  Middle  Ages  must  influence  most  profoundly  the 
life  of  to-day,  because  the  life  of  to-day  is  in  the  broadest 
sense  the  product  of  mediaeval  conditions ;  but  if  the  two 
extremes  in  the  series  were  placed  side  by  side,  if  the 
institution  of  to-day  were  compared  with  that  very  different 
germ  in  the  Middle  Ages  from  which  it  has  sprung,  no 
one  could  profess  to  discover  the  faintest  resemblance 
between  the  two. 

What  similarity  is  there  between  the  mediaeval  gild, 
with  its  profound  and  intense  local  feeling,  its  stringent 
regulation  of  its  members*  industrial  activity,  its  fixing  of 
prices,  the  religious  feeling  which  permeated  its  every 
aspect,  its  charities,  its  liveries,  its  festivals,  and  the  great 
capitalistic  organisations  of  to-day,  of  world-wide  scope; 
a  Port  Sunlight,  for  example,  with  its  factories,  its  fleet  of 
ships,  its  tropic  islands  to  feed  it  with  the  essential  raw 
materials,  its  distributing  agents  in  every  part  of  the  habi- 
table globe  ?  And  yet  there  is  a  broad  road  of  historical 
development  that  leads  straight  from  the  one  to  the  other, 
for  out  of  the  corruption  of  the  gild  system  capitalism  in 
industry  developed ;  commercial  capital,  which  was  probably 
one  of  the  earliest  forms  to  arise,  was  able  to  secure  the 
subordination  of  allied  crafts,  and,  long  before  the  Industrial 
Revolution  came  with  its  power  machinery,  capitalism  was 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

a  vital  factor  in  industry,  and  in  certain  trades  the  factory- 
had  already  become  the  industrial  unit.  The  Industrial 
Revolution  merely  selected  and  emphasised  those  forms  of 
economic  organisation  which  were  most  suited  to  its  rapid 
development,  and  so  laid  the  foundation  of  the  industrial 
system  as  we  know  it  to-day ;  on  this  foundation,  steam  and 
electric  transport  and  the  development  of  international 
finance  have  built  that  ostentatious  and  somewhat  in- 
secure edifice  of  large-scale  production  which  has  divided 
the  world  into  the  antagonistic  classes  of  employers  and 
employed,  and  which  at  present  is  threatening  immediate 
collapse  and  the  engulfing  with  it  of  the  whole  system  of 
our  industrial  organisation ;  if  a  tree  is  to  be  judged  by 
its  fruits,  this  is  not  a  disaster  greatly  to  be  deplored. 

Or  if  we  regard  that  most  conservative  of  all  industries 
— agriculture — what  possible  resemblance  can  be  seen 
between  the  great  farms  of  Canada  or  the  United  States, 
with  their  enormous  fields  tilled  almost  entirely  by  power 
machinery,  from  the  ploughing  of  the  land  to  the  har- 
vesting of  the  ripe  grain,  and  the  two-  or  the  three-field 
system  of  the  Middle  Ages,  with  fairly  large  fields  indeed, 
but  each  field  split  up  into  acre  or  half-acre  strips,  with 
each  man's  land  scattered  throughout  the  common  fields, 
a  strip  here  and  a  strip  there,  with  its  primitive  and  rigid 
system  of  agriculture,  its  crude  ox-drawn  plough,  its 
co-operative  cultivation,  its  sowing  and  reaping  and 
threshing  by  hand,  its  dependence  on  the  waste  and  the 
woodland,  its  manorial  services,  its  normal  condition  of 
self-sufficiency  ?  And  yet,  once  more,  the  Middle  Ages 
live  still  in  the  most  modern  methods :  to  prove  this,  it  is 
not  necessary  to  stress  mere  verbal  survivals — the  fact  that 
we  still  use  the  term  furlong,  the  length  of  the  mediaeval 
furrow,  and  chain,  the  breadth  of  the  mediaeval  acre-strip, 
234 


I 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

for  long  before  the  Middle  Ages  were  drawing  to  a  close 
there  were  growing  up  side  by  side  with  those  scattered 
strips  the  more  convenient  compact  farms,  consisting 
sometimes  of  land  enclosed  from  the  waste,  sometimes  of 
a  bundle  of  neighbouring  strips  gradually  and  painfully 
gathered  into  the  same  hand;  to  a  few  minds  that  rose 
above  the  common  agricultural  ruck,  these  compact  farms, 
which  had  grown  up  almost  as  it  were  by  accident,  were 
not  long  in  demonstrating  their  superiority,  and  they 
began  to  be  consciously  imitated;  books  were  written 
advocating  their  creation,  a  general  feeling  arose  that  land 
in  severalty  was  necessary  for  progressive  agriculture, 
especially  as,  at  this  time,  the  balance  that  had  held  in  the 
Middle  Ages  between  arable  and  pasture  land  was  being 
completely  reversed  by  the  realisation  of  the  profits  that 
came  from  intelligent  sheep-farming;  enclosing  became 
the  fashion,  and  when  science  began  to  lend  its  aid  to  the 
agriculturist,  when  root  crops,  fodder  crops,  and  the  more 
careful  preparation  of  the  soil  began  to  be  regarded,  the 
Agricultural  Revolution  exercised  the  same  selective  power 
as  did  the  Industrial  Revolution  some  years  later.  To  the 
compact  farm  its  methods  could  be  most  easily  applied; 
therefore  it  was  primarily  to  the  compact  farm  that  it 
brought  prosperity;  the  strip  system  and  the  open  fields 
had  to  give  way,  and  contemporary  industrial  conditions 
soon  turned  their  defeat  into  absolute  rout.  Therefore  the 
compact  fields  were  the  prevalent  type  to  which  the  appli- 
cation of  the  simpler  forms  of  agricultural  machinery 
brought  still  greater  prosperity,  and,  with  the  bring- 
ing under  cultivation  of  the  vast  and  level  areas  of  the 
New  World,  the  use  of  steam  or  electric  power  became 
common,  and  further  mechanical  improvements  followed  as 
of  course. 

235 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

Thus  both  in  industrial  and  agricultural  practice  modern 
conditions  grew  naturally  out  of  mediasval  organisation,  and 
the  latter  must  have  contributed  much  to  the  form  that 
modern  life  has  taken.  As  much  can  be  said  of  mediaeval 
economic  theory :  it  seems,  indeed,  a  far  cry  from  the 
prohibition  of  usury,  which  is  stressed  so  much,  and  often 
so  inaccurately,  in  economic  text-books,  to  those  philan- 
thropic gentlemen  of  to-day,  who,  under  ostentatiously 
English  names,  are  prepared  to  lend  us  any  sum  from  five 
pounds  to  five  thousand  on  our  note  of  hand  alone.  And 
yet  there  is  really  no  break  in  the  chain  of  development 
that  connects  the  two,  for  the  prohibition  of  usury  was 
but  the  one  side  of  the  mediasval  picture,  and  if  usury  was 
forbidden,  interest  was  allowed :  if  on  the  one  hand  it  was 
held  wrongful  to  exact  payment  or  usury  from  your  fellow- 
man  for  a  loan  which  he  repaid  punctually  and  in  full,  for 
any  gain  that  had  accrued  to  him  by  that  loan  was  the  result 
of  his  own  intelligence  or  his  own  labour  and  not  of  yours, 
yet  compensation  or  interest  could  always  be  claimed  if  you 
had  suffered  actual  loss  in  consequence  of  making  the  loan, 
either  because  it  was  not  repaid  punctually,  or  because  you 
had  been  yourself  placed  in  difiiculties  for  lack  of  the  money, 
or  because  you  had  thereby  been  hindered  from  making  a 
just  and  legitimate  profit.  As  the  opportunities  for  the 
employment  of  money  in  trade  and  industry  increased, 
the  chances  that  the  making  of  a  loan  would  react  un- 
favourably on  the  lender  grew  greater — interest  assumed 
an  ever  more  prominent  position  at  the  expense  of  usury, 
which  was  gradually  pushed  into  the  background;  the 
secular  government,  which  had  succeeded  the  Church  in  the 
regulation  of  economic  activities,  considered  that  enough 
had  been  done  when  it  had  laid  down  maximum  rates  of 
interest,  and  finally  even  that  precautionary  measure  was 
236 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

abandoned,  in  England  at  any  rate,  with  the  repeal  of  the 
usury  laws  in  1839,  thus  allowing  free  scope  to  the  activities 
of  those  who  lend  out  at  interest.  But  it  is  extraordinarily 
significant  of  the  way  in  which  a  regulation  which  is  based 
upon  sound  principles  will  persist  or,  if  for  a  time  abolished, 
will  later  be  revived,  that,  by  the  Money-lenders  Act  of 
1900,  once  more  was  there  imposed  a  limitation  on  the 
rate  of  interest  that  could  be  charged,  and  once  more  was 
there  a  legal  difference  between  that  and  usury,  not  certainly 
the  same  as  existed  in  the  Middle  Ages,  but  based  upon 
essentially  the  same  idea,  that  of  a  reasonable  justice 
between  lender  and  borrower. 

Here  you  have  had  the  same  fundamental  idea  leading 
to  much  the  same  conclusion  in  both  mediaeval  and  in 
modern  times,  but  that  was  by  no  means  always  the  case. 

If  one  desired  to  show  that  there  was  any  real  connection 
between  that  central  doctrine  of  mediaeval  theory — the 
idea  of  the  Just  Price — and  the  doctrine  which  was  equally 
vital  to  the  England  of  the  late  nineteenth  century — that  of 
the  free  competitive  price — one  would,  on  the  face  of  things, 
have  considerable  difficulties  to  meet.  Yet  if  one  were  to  read 
"  Buying  and  selling  seem  to  be  established  for  the  common 
advantage  of  both  parties,  one  of  whom  requires  that  which 
belongs  to  the  other  and  vice  versa^'  one  would  be  tempted 
to  exclaim :  "  Ah,  yes,  from  Adam  Smith  no  doubt,  and 
from  this  he  will  prove  that  as  both  parties  benefit  from 
the  transaction  there  is  no  sense  in  trying  to  impose  restric- 
tions upon  it ;  every  man  will  then  be  at  liberty  to  seek  his 
own  profit,  and  the  sum  of  the  profits  of  each  will  be  the 
profit  of  all,  that  is,  of  the  country  at  large ;  hence  the 
value  of  free  trade  and  competitive  prices."  But  it  is 
nothing  of  the  kind;  the  quotation  really  comes  from 
St  Thomas  Aquinas,    the  greatest  exponent  of  economic 

237 


MEDIiEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

theory  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  he  goes  on  from  it  to  prove 
the  value  of  the  Just  Price,  not  of  the  competitive  price. 
Therefore,  different  though  these  two  things  be,  they 
obviously  have  something  in  common ;  Adam  Smith  and 
those  predecessors  of  his  who  were  preaching  these  doctrines 
through  the  whole  of  the  eighteenth  century  were  merely 
harking  back  to  one  of  the  fundamental  truths  that  underlay 
the  idea  of  the  Just  Price  and  of  the  legislation  that  strove 
to  enforce  it,  not  only  in  the  Middle  Ages,  but  also  under 
the  Tudors  and  earlier  Stuarts;  Adam  Smith  approached 
the  problem  from  the  soulless  standpoint  of  the  economist, 
St  Thomas  from  the  more  human  one  of  the  moralist  and 
the  theologian,  but  their  problem  was  much  the  same  in 
the  two  cases,  the  medley  of  conflicting  interests  under 
which  trade  groaned,  and  the  lack  of  some  sound  principle 
upon  which  economic  theory  could  base  any  doctrine  as  to 
the  trade  relations  of  man  with  man. 

And  so  one  might  go  through  the  whole  gamut  of  the 
economic  theory  and  practice  of  modern  times,  but  within 
the  limits  of  a  brief  article  it  would  be  impossible  to 
trace  this  steady,  and  at  times  almost  imperceptible,  develop- 
ment which  has  changed  the  mediaeval  organisation  into 
the  fundamentally  different  one  of  the  twentieth  century. 

Rather  is  it  desirable  to  turn  our  attention  to  the  limited 
and  more  precise  sense  in  which  it  could  be  said  that  the 
Middle  Ages  have  contributed  to  our  present  civilisation ; 
of  these  contributions  there  seem  to  be  two:  a  direct 
influence  by  the  survival  down  to  modern  times  of  some 
typical  mediaeval  practice  or  idea,  and  a  more  indirect 
influence  arising  from  the  conscious  imitation  by  men  of 
the  present  day  of  some  mediaeval  institution  which  they 
have  learned  to  respect. 

The  survivals  are  actually  few  in  number,  and  are  often 
238 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

more  interesting  than  important,  but  some  at  least  still 
form  an  essential  portion  of  our  civilisation.  In  the 
realms  of  industry  we  sometimes  confide  ourselves  to  the 
provincial  make-to-measure  tailor  or  bootmaker,  who  is 
often  a  handicraftsman  employing  his  own  capital  to  supply 
his  small  stock-in-trade  of  cloth  or  of  leather,  possibly  with 
men  working  under  him,  but  none  the  less  supervising 
and  often  working  with  them  himself.  Then  there  is 
the  small  dressmaker  in  the  back  street  who  makes  up 
her  customer's  goods,  and  so  requires  no  capital  but 
her  needle  or  her  sewing-machine.  She  represents  another 
phase  of  mediaeval  industry  which  we  still  have  with  us 
and  which  plays  a  not  unimportant  part  in  our  appear- 
ance as  a  nation.  Tailor,  bootmaker,  and  dressmaker 
alike  have  survived  the  competition  of  capitalism  and 
large-scale  production,  although  there  are  signs  even  now 
that  their  doom  is  not  far  distant,  and  they  still  remain 
as  mediaeval  in  their  business  organisation  as  they  are 
but  too  often  in  their  methods  and  their  ideas  of  current 
fashions. 

Or  consider  the  west  of  Ireland  and  the  west  of  Scotland 
tweeds;  they  are  still  made  to  some  considerable  extent  in 
the  people's  own  houses,  the  industry  is  still  domestic,  very 
comparable  to  that  which  was  growing  up  in  the  wool- 
trade  throughout  the  period  of  the  later  Middle  Ages, 
and  which  reached  its  full  importance  with  the  decadence 
of  the  gild  system  in  the  fifteenth  centur}'.  The  centuries 
have  passed  them  by,  and  to-day  they  have  an  importance 
as  having  done  something  by  the  force  of  example  to  assist 
in  the  revival  of  village  industries  to  which  I  shall  presently 
refer. 

All  the  examples  of  survivals  that  have  hitherto  been 
given   have  been  taken   from  the  realm  of  industr)',   but 

239 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

commerce  can  provide  an  even  more  important  one:  the 
great  fairs  that  are  still  held  on  the  Continent  serve  pre- 
cisely the  same  purpose  as  they  did  in  the  Middle  Ages; 
thither  merchants  still  bring  their  wares  and  set  them  out 
before  the  buyers  who  flock  from  all  corners  of  the  country, 
sure  of  finding  the  class  of  goods  for  which  the  fair  has 
become  famous :  such  are  the  great  book  and  leather 
fairs  of  Leipzig,  the  fairs  of  Nijni-Novgorod,  where  the 
furs  of  the  North,  the  tea  and  silk  of  China,  are  purchased 
by  the  merchants  of  Western  Russia,  and  in  a  lesser  degree 
the  more  famous  of  the  markets  in  some  of  the  great 
capitals,  the  Billingsgate  and  Covent  Garden  of  London, 
or  Les  Halles  of  Paris,  which  bear  to  the  town  somewhat 
the  same  relation  as  a  street  in  the  great  mediaeval  fair  bore 
to  the  whole  country. 

And  even  high  finance  has  its  mediaeval  survivals,  some 
still  in  a  very  flourishing  condition ;  possibly  lending  to 
kings  is  not  practised  so  much  to-day  when  crowns  are 
falling  too  fast  to  be  pleasant,  but  the  Bardi  and  the  Peruzzi 
of  the  fourteenth  century  have  worthy  successors  in  the 
Rothschilds  of  the  nineteenth.  But  it  is  in  less  exalted 
spheres  that  the  survival  is  most  striking :  the  pawnbroker 
is  a  useful  member  of  society  who  is  still  with  us.  In 
the  early  days  he  was  usually,  though  not  always,  a  Jew, 
and  occasionally  he  received  rather  quaint  pledges :  one 
can  conceive  that  he  would  have  little  objection  to  taking 
charge  of  the  plate  of  Lincoln  Minster  which  Bishop 
Chesney  pledged  with  Aaron  of  Lincoln  in  the  middle 
of  the  twelfth  century,  but  when  William  of  Walterville, 
Abbot  of  Peterborough,  in  1175'  broke  open  the  reli- 
quaries in  his  own  church  and  pledged  the  relics  of  the 
saints  together  with  the  arm  of  St  Oswald,  king  and  martyr, 
with  the  Jews,  the  least  that  might  have  been  expected  was 
240 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

a  miracle  in  which  the  arm  of  the  wrathful  Oswald  should 
have  played  the  principal  part;  alas!  the  chronicler  is 
silent  as  to  any  such  sequel.  But  that  the  path  of  the 
pawnbroker  in  those  early  days  was  often  a  thorny  one 
we  learn  from  the  following  tale,  culled  from  the  middle 
of  the  twelfth  century : 

"  A  mighty  noble  and  robber  pledged  his  carriage  for 
twenty  deniers  with  Reuben.  Now  Simeon  desired  to  go 
on  a  journey,  and  asked  Reuben  for  the  loan  of  the  carriage. 
Reuben  said :  *  You  must  first  ask  permission  of  the  lord.* 
But  the  lord  being  out,  Simeon  asked  his  lady,  who  gave 
him  leave.  It  happened  that  on  their  journey  Simeon  and 
his  wife  passed  the  lord's  castle  in  the  carriage,  whereupon 
the  lady,  seeing  this,  declared  she  would  never  sit  in  the 
carriage  where  a  Jewess  had  sat.  She  sent  for  Reuben 
and  demanded  the  carriage  back,  to  atone  for  the  profana- 
tion, and  declared  that  she  would  make  one  of  her  servants 
swear  that  it  had  suffered  more  than  twenty  deniers'  damage. 
When  Reuben  pointed  out  that  she  had  given  Simeon 
permission,  she  denied  it."  Now  the  problem  arises,  who 
ought  to  stand  the  loss  of  the  twenty  deniers — Reuben  or 
Simeon  .''  But  unfortunately  our  curiosity  must  go  unsatis- 
fied, for  the  question  is  left  unanswered. 

But  Christians  did  not  long  leave  the  Jews  unrivalled 
in  so  lucrative  a  field  as  pawnbroking,  and  just  before 
the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages  we  actually  hear  of  a  religious 
order — the  Franciscans — entering  the  ancient  and  honour- 
able money-lending  profession,  though,  be  it  said,  from 
the  worthiest  of  motives.  In  1462  they  founded  the  first 
of  their  montes  pietatis  at  Orvieto  in  order  to  loan  money 
to  the  poor  at  reasonable  rates ;  so  popular  did  they  become 
that  eleven  more  were  founded  in  Italy  during  the  next 
thirty   years,    and   to-day   the    Mont   de    Piete — or   State 

Q  241 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

pawnbroking  establishment — of  Paris  preserves  the  name 
and,  to  some  extent,  the  laudable  objects  of  the  houses 
set  up  by  the  excellent  Franciscans. 

But,  after  all,  interesting  as  these  survivals  are,  important 
as  may  be  the  part  they  play  in  the  daily  life  of  some  of 
us,  their  influence  upon  modern  economic  conditions  seems 
almost  negligible  in  comparison  with  that  which  has  re- 
sulted from  the  study  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  con- 
viction that  followed  in  the  minds  of  many  eminent  men 
of  the  later  nineteenth  century — a  conviction  that  is  still 
a  very  living  thing — that  the  Middle  Ages  had  much  to 
teach  us,  much  that  would  lift  us  out  of  the  sordid  mate- 
rialism into  which  we  had  sunk,  much  that  might  aid 
in  solving  those  social  and  industrial  problems  that  were 
crowding  thick  and  fast  upon  England  at  the  end  of  the 
last  century. 

The  first  fifty  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  found 
England  profoundly  steeped  in  an  indolent  and  insular 
spirit  of  self-satisfaction,  an  England  given  up  to  the 
grosser  forms  of  money-making,  lacking  in  aesthetic 
appreciation  or  in  any  honest  sympathy  with  the  world 
that  surrounded  her,  an  England  like  nothing  so  much 
as  that  fine  flower  of  her  artistic  effort,  her  horsehair- 
covered  furniture — smooth  and  sleek  and  shiny  and  ex- 
ceeding loathsome  to  the  touch.  We  were,  indeed,  a 
nation  of  shopkeepers,  and  shopkeepers  of  the  sancti- 
monious type  that  praised  God  daily  that  they  were  not 
as  other  men.  The  corrupting  finger  of  trade  had  touched 
everything;  it  was  the  Englishman's  boast  that  he  turned 
out  good  solid  stuff;  with  its  beauty,  its  originality,  even 
the  measure  with  which  it  met  the  convenience  of  his 
customers  in  other  lands,  he  was  not  concerned — what 
was  good  enough  for  him  must  indeed  be  good  enough 
242 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

for  the  rest  of  the  world;  even  if  the  name  originated 
in  the  early  eighteenth  century,  the  conventional  picture 
of  John  Bull  might  well  have  been  first  drawn  during 
these  years,  so  much  does  it  reek  of  their  typical  beef-fed 
self-complacency. 

With  those  whom  he  was  pleased  to  call  the  lower 
classes  he  did  not  have  much  concern ;  they  had  certainly 
given  trouble  earlier  in  the  century,  but  by  1850  they 
seemed  to  have  been  successfully  hypnotised  by  their 
mechanics'  institutes  and  their  politico-socialist  discussions, 
and  it  was  once  more  safe  to  treat  them  as* so  many  cogs 
in  the  industrial  wheel,  for  why  should  they  not  be  fully 
satisfied  so  long  as  regular  wages  rewarded  the  years  of 
their  toil  and  a  strictly  just  workhouse  system  tended  their 
grey  hairs  to  the  grave  ? 

Against  all  this  a  small  group  of  idealists  revolted. 
Ruskin  and  William  Morris  were  led  by  their  desire  to 
introduce  more  beauty  into  a  drab  and  material  world 
to  strike  at  the  root  of  the  evil  and  find  some  means  to 
breathe  fresh  life  into  industry,  to  make  each  worker  feel 
that  he  was  producing  something  worth  while.  It  was 
impossible  to  do  this,  they  soon  came  to  the  conclusion, 
so  long  as  the  workman  was  regarded  as  so  much  labour 
material,  so  long  as  machine  production  was  allowed  to 
crush  out  all  individuality.  This  quarrel  with  the  current 
methods  of  industry  drove  them  and  those  who  thought 
like  them  to  seek  inspiration  from  the  past.  Just  as  the 
Pre-Raphaelites  sought  to  recover  the  art  of  the  later 
Middle  Ages,  Ruskin  and  Morris,  enthralled  by  an  ideal- 
ised picture  of  mediaeval  industry  in  the  heyday  of  the 
gild  system,  strove  to  re-establish  such  conditions  as  they 
thought  might  secure  that  economic  independence  and 
that  freedom  to  follow  the  lure  of   his  own  spirit  which 

243 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

they  imagined  the  mediaeval  craftsman  to  possess.  And 
therefore  arose  that  movement  for  the  estabhshment  of 
arts  and  crafts,  for  the  revival  of  village  industries.  As 
Walter  Crane  well  says  in  his  article,  "  The  Revival  of 
Handicrafts  and  Design  "  : 

The  movement  indeed  represents,  in  some  sense,  a  revolt 
against  the  hard  mechanical  life  and  its  insensibility  to  beauty 
(quite  another  thing  to  ornament).  It  is  a  protest  against  that 
so-called  industrial  progress  which  produces  shoddy  wares,  the 
cheapness  of  which  is  paid  for  by  the  lives  of  their  producers 
and  degradation  of  their  users.  It  is  a  protest  against  the 
turning  of  men  into  machines,  against  artificial  distinctions  in 
art,  and  against  making  the  immediate  or  market  value,  or 
possibility  of  profit,  the  chief  test  of  artistic  merit.  It  asserts, 
moreover,  .  .  .  apart  from  the  very  wholesome  and  real 
pleasure  in  the  fashioning  of  a  thing  with  claims  to  art  and 
beauty,  the  struggle  with  and  triumph  over  technical  necessities 
which  refuse  to  be  gainsaid. 

Along  with  the  arts  and  crafts  movement  went  the 
revival  of  village  industries.  It  was  just  as  mediaeval  in 
its  inspiration,  for  it  sought  on  the  one  hand  to  recreate 
the  master-craftsman  working  for  himself  with  his  own 
materials,  and  largely  guided  by  traditional  or  conventional 
models,  but  in  no  way  precluded  from  making  his  own 
variations  from  them ;  and  on  the  other,  to  snatch  industry 
from  the  grime  and  drudgery  of  large  towns,  from  the 
slavery  of  machinery  and  the  routine  of  the  factory,  and 
by  transplanting  it  into  the  country  to  breed  another  type 
of  worker,  who  fashioned  things  with  his  brain  as  well 
as  with  his  hands,  who  was  his  own  master  and  sound  in 
body  as  in  mind ;  a  man  who  could  say  with  Touchstone 
even  more  truly  than  Shakespeare  had  foreseen,  "  An  ill- 
favoured  thing,  sir,  but  mine  own,"  for  he  would  be  speaking 
not  merely  of  possession,  which  after  all  is  little  enough, 
244 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

but  of  that  god-like  power  of  creation,  of  loving  the  work 
of  your  hands,  that  you  have  moulded  from  shapeless 
clay  to  a  thing  of  beauty  or  of  use. 

This  is  medievalism  right  enough,  but  mediaevalism  seen 
through  a  golden  haze,  with  all  its  petty  failings  wiped 
out,  its  local  jealousies  and  small  discomforts  ignored ; 
mediaevalism  with  the  emphasis  laid  on  every  feature  that 
contrasted  most  strongly  with  modern  industrial  methods, 
and  because  of  that  very  contrast,  rather  than  by  reason 
of  inherent  value,  its  every  feature  pronounced  worthy  to 
redeem  the  world  from  the  parlous  condition  into  which 
it  had  drifted  for  lack  of  a  due  observance  of  the  funda- 
mentals of  mediaeval  life. 

But  by  teaching  these  fundamentals  much  that  was  best 
in  the  Middle  Ages  was  brought  to  bear  on  modern  civili- 
sation and  influenced  it  profoundly,  for,  though  William 
Morris  did  not  really  know  the  true  Middle  Ages  at  all, 
and  did  not  see  them  with  the  eyes  of  the  people  who 
lived  in  them,  yet  in  a  way  he  knew  them  better  than 
we  do,  with  all  our  knowledge  of  their  infinite  variety, 
drawn  from  painful  research  into  the  records  they  have 
left  behind  them,  for,  an  idealist  and  a  visionary  himself, 
he  could  speak  across  the  centuries  with  men  of  like  sub- 
stance; we  are  too  prone  to  stress  the  exceptions,  we 
know  too  many  details  always  to  estimate  fairly  the  broad 
light  and  shade  of  the  picture ;  we  are  a  little  too  ready 
to  describe  the  Middle  Ages  from  its  lists  of  crimes  and 
misdemeanours,  to  delineate  society,  as  it  were,  from  a 
Newgate  Calendar.  Religion  was  then  a  living  force, 
and  its  precepts  guided  a  man  in  every  walk  of  life,  whether 
sleeping  or  working,  eating  or  fasting;  if  one  wants  to 
know  the  economic  theories  of  the  day  it  is  to  the  moralists, 
the  theologians,  the  scholastic  writers,  that  one  goes,  and 

=45 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

merely  to  say  that  their  theories  were  often  violated  proves 
little ;  that  there  are  thieves  in  London  does  not  prove  that 
no  man's  goods  are  safe;  indeed,  every  breach  of  a  law 
that  is  recognised  as  such  but  serves  to  emphasise  the 
reality  of  such  a  law,  and  many  of  the  broad  fundamental 
truths  upon  which  the  Middle  Ages  based  much  of  its 
life  have,  of  recent  years,  gained  acceptance  once  more 
by  moralists  and  economists  alike.  Sometimes  there  has 
been  conscious  imitation,  sometimes  merely  a  revival  of 
past  ideas  unconsciously  evoked  by  similar  circumstances 
and  emotions.  When  Morris  and  his  followers  preached 
the  dignity  of  labour  they  were  intentionally  treading  the 
path  already  traced  by  many  mediaeval  footsteps :  what 
the  Benedictines  taught  by  their  example,  Trithemius  at 
the  very  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  expressed  in  words : 
"  Man  is  born  to  labour  as  the  bird  to  fly,  and  hence  it 
is  contrary  to  the  nature  of  man  when  he  thinks  to  live 
without  work." 

Mere  similarity  between  mediaeval  precept  and  modern 
practice  does  not,  however,  always  imply  any  continuity 
or  even  any  attempt  by  men  of  the  present  day  to 
imitate  what  seemed  good  to  the  fourteenth  or  fifteenth 
century,  and  it  is  necessary,  even  though  it  be  difficult, 
to  remember  that  there  is  no  direct  connection  between 
the  Profiteering  Act  or  the  Food  Control  of  to-day 
and  the  doctrine  preached  by  that  same  Trithemius 
when  he  writes :  "  Whoever  buys  corn,  meat,  and  wine 
in  order  to  drive  up  their  price  and  to  amass  money  at  the 
cost  of  others  is,  according  to  the  law  of  the  Church,  no 
better  than  a  common  criminal.  In  a  well-governed 
community  all  arbitrary  raising  of  prices  in  the  case  of 
articles  of  food  and  clothing  is  peremptorily  stopped ; 
in  times  of  scarcity  merchants  who  have  supplies  of  such 
246 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

commodities  can  be  compelled  to  sell  them  at  fair  prices, 
for  in  every  community  care  should  be  taken  that  all  the 
members  be  provided  for,  and  not  only  a  small  number 
be  allowed  to  grow  rich  and  revel  in  luxury  to  the  hurt 
and  prejudice  of  the  many."  These  ideas  are  not  precisely 
those  that  would  have  commended  themselves  to  the 
economist  of  a  hundred  years  ago.  How  then  is  it  that 
they  find  favour  to-day  ?  It  is  merely  that  the  Just  Price 
is  coming  to  its  own  again,  based,  indeed,  on  very  similar 
factors  to  those  that  determined  it  in  the  Middle  Ages — 
wages,  cost  of  material,  and  a  reasonable  profit  to  the 
producer.  This  is  no  doubt  partly  due  to  the  artificial 
conditions  created  by  the  War,  but  yet,  at  bottom,  even 
this  is  the  indirect  result  of  the  mediaeval  influence  which 
was  brought  to  bear  on  English  economic  theory  by  the 
school  of  William  Morris,  One  of  the  changes  which 
he  did  a  great  deal  to  stimulate,  although  he  cannot  be 
said  to  be  its  sole  author,  was  the  reassociation  of  ethics 
with  economics;  in  the  Middle  Ages  there  had  been  the 
closest  union  between  the  two — in  fact,  it  would  not  be 
too  strong  a  statement  to  say  that  all  the  fundamental 
principles  of  economic  theory  were  part  of  the  ethics  of 
the  day.  And  this  lasted  for  some  considerable  time  after 
the  Middle  Ages  had  passed  away,  much  of  the  govern- 
ment regulation  of  the  Tudors  and  even  of  the  early  Stuarts 
being  set  up  on  a  definitely  ethical  basis.  But  as  religion 
became  more  individualistic  with  the  advent  of  the 
Reformers,  as  the  master  and  apprentice  became  more 
definitely  employer  and  employed,  and  the  employer  no 
longer  shared  in  the  actual  craftsmanship,  and  so  was  less 
capable  of  understanding  the  needs  of  his  workmen,  com- 
mercial and  industrial  practice  began  to  overcome  the 
authority  of  general  theory,  and  new  theories  that  were 

247 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

evolved  owed  their  existence  to  an  attempt  to  explain  and 
justify  existing  facts  rather  than  to  establish  any  general 
basis  for  economic  activity.  This  became  much  more 
pronounced  during  the  eighteenth  century  and  culminated 
in  the  great  school  of  English  theorists  who  looked  to 
Adam  Smith  as  their  progenitor.  Then  came  that  chilly 
abstraction,  the  economic  man,  divorced  not  only  from  all 
ethical  considerations  but  even  from  human  and  psycho- 
logical ones  as  well.  Against  all  this  the  teaching  of 
William  Morris  inaugurated  a  revolt  which  joined  hands 
with  the  better  aspects  of  the  humanitarian  movement, 
and  began  that  stressing  of  other  than  purely  economic 
considerations  in  the  world  of  industry  and  commerce 
which  has  culminated  in  the  attitude  of  the  present  day, 
in  the  pressure  for  an  improved  standard  of  life  and  a 
minimum  wage,  in  the  treatment  of  employees  as  human 
beings  with  tastes  to  be  studied  and  bodies  and  minds 
to  be  cared  for,  as  men  and  women  and  not  as  mere  cogs 
in  the  industrial  machine.  It  looks  a  far  cry  from  the 
Middle  Ages  to  these  essentially  modern  doctrines,  and 
the  road  that  connects  the  two  is  often  obscure,  but  it 
does  exist,  and  had  mediaeval  economic  theory  made  no 
other  contribution  than  this  to  the  solution  of  the  problems 
that  face  our  civilisation  of  to-day  it  would  amply  have 
justified  itself. 

But,  in  fact,  much  more  can  be  said  in  its  praise.  To 
us  who  live  in  the  midst  of  industrial  turmoil,  of  strikes 
for  higher  wages,  of  strikes  for  shorter  hours,  strikes  for 
nationalisation,  and  strikes  for  local  self-government  in  the 
factory,  the  world  seems  caught  in  an  infernal  labyrinth 
from  which  there  is  no  escape.  But  all  the  same  we  do 
struggle  to  escape,  and  to  some  of  us,  groping  wildly  after 
light,  the  thought  comes  that  the  experience  of  the  past 
248 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

might  provide  suggestion  and  precept.  It  was  but  natural 
that  those  who  had  already  been  deeply  influenced  by  the 
ideas  of  William  Morris,  ideas  which  had  achieved  a 
certain  amount  of  success  in  spite  of  the  rather  patronising 
attitude  that  was  taken  by  many  of  their  exponents  toward 
the  unenlightened  masses,  should  turn  to  that  same  epoch 
which  had  already  been  the  source  of  his  finest  inspiration. 
And  this  was  all  the  more  natural  because  the  most  evil 
of  the  conditions  they  sought  to  destroy  was  capitalism, 
and  it  was  one  of  their  fondest  beliefs  that  the  characteristic 
institutions  of  the  Middle  Ages  were  the  sworn  enemies 
of  the  capitalist;  moreover,  the  leaders  of  this  new  move- 
ment were  not,  as  a  rule,  men  who  had  been  at  all  influenced 
by  the  scientific  study  of  mediaeval  times  that  had  been 
made  since  the  days  of  William  Morris,  a  study  which 
has  shown  that  many  of  his  historical  conceptions  would 
not  stand  detailed  examination. 

I  need  hardly  tell  you  that  it  was  in  the  gild  that  this 
small  group  of  writers  saw  salvation.  Morris  had  justly 
realised  that  the  gild  was  the  central  feature  of  industrial 
life  in  the  Middle  Ages,  that  the  craftsman  as  a  unit  was 
as  nothing,  that  he  attained  to  the  full  measure  of  his 
existence  only  as  a  member  of  his  gild ;  that  in  his  gild 
he  enjoyed  some  of  the  advantages  of  corporate  life,  that 
he  learnt  some  of  the  lessons  of  self-regulation,  if  not  of 
self-government,  that  there  he  enjoyed  the  support  of  his 
fellows  without  sacrificing  his  industrial  independence;  it 
was  the  gild  that  strove  for  good  quality  and  fair  prices, 
honest  work  and  a  decent  living  for  all.  What  Morris 
failed  to  realise  was  that,  while  in  theory  the  gild  was  all 
this  and  more,  in  practice  it  fell  far  below  such  a  standard ; 
its  members  were  but  human  after  all,  and  as  full  of  human 
failinfrs  as  their  less   favoured   brethren  of  the  twentieth 

249 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

century.  They  scamped  their  work  on  occasion,  they 
evaded  the  gild  regulations  when  they  could,  they  put 
their  best  cloths  on  the  outside  of  a  bale  and  the  poorest 
in  the  middle,  they  moistened  groceries  to  make  them 
heavier,  they  soldered  together  broken  swords  and  sold 
them  to  confiding  customers  for  as  good  as  new — indeed, 
they  would  have  found  themselves  thoroughly  at  home  in 
the  present  age.  And  even  the  gild  itself  loses  some  of 
its  glamour  when  viewed  at  close  quarters ;  its  regulations 
often  proved  oppressive  and  unfairly  restrictive,  and,  as 
the  Middle  Ages  wore  to  a  close,  it  often  steadily  tended 
to  become  an  exclusive  body  of  masters,  careless  of  the 
interests  of  the  craft  as  a  whole,  thoughtful  only  for  the 
gain  of  that  particular  section  from  which  its  members 
were  drawn. 

But  the  protagonists  in  the  movement  for  the  revival 
of  the  gilds — the  industrious  Mr  Penty  and,  in  a  lesser 
degree,  Mr  Orage — were  not  hampered  by  too  close  an 
acquaintance  with  the  economic  history  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  Even  in  his  latest  work,  A  Gidldsmans  Interpre- 
tation of  History^  Mr  Penty  remains  the  same  guileless 
enthusiast  that  he  was  in  the  beginning ;  he  can  still  believe 
in  the  pure  and  undiluted  communalism  of  early  society, 
in  its  degradation  by  a  foul  conspiracy  of  lawyers,  capitalists, 
and  religious  reformers,  and  he  can  still  write  of  it  in  a 
way  reminiscent  of  nothing  so  much  as  Fenimore  Cooper 
in  praise  of  the  noble  Redskin.  "  Looking  at  Feudalism 
from  this  point  of  view,"  he  says,  "  it  may  be  said  that 
while  its  existence  was  due  to  the  depredations  of  robber 
knights,  and  though  these  knights  would  have  certain 
groups  of  workers  at  their  mercy,  there  would  be  other 
knights  or  lords,  who  came  into  being  as  protectors  of 
the  communal  rights  of  the  people.  Such  were  the 
250 


TO  MODERN   CIVILISATION 

chivalrous  knights  of  romance  and  legend.  .  .  .  The  serfs 
of  the  robber  knights  would  be  tyrannised  over,  because  the 
robber  knights  would  never  feel  their  position  to  be  secure ; 
but  the  serfs  of  the  chivalrous  knights  would  enjoy  all  the 
advantages  of  a  communal  life,  for  the  chivalrous  knights, 
owing  their  position  to  popular  election,  would  have  no 
desire  to  tyrannise." 

Now,  a  man  who  can  write  such  unmitigated  nonsense 
as  this  would  seem  little  likely  to  found  a  movement  that 
would  prove  of  any  real  importance.  And  yet,  while  these 
early  advocates  of  the  adaptation  of  gilds  to  the  needs  of 
modern  industry — Penty,  Orage,  and  Hobson — possessed 
none  of  the  genius  and  little  of  the  literary  ability  of  a 
Ruskin  or  a  Morris,  they  were  dowered  with  that  enthusi- 
astic belief  in  themselves  and  their  cause  which  is  eminently 
necessary  if  a  new  doctrine  is  to  gather  converts  to  its 
side.  And  converts  they  made,  most  notable  among  them 
being  G.  D.  H.  Cole,  the  present  leader  of  the  guild  socialist 
school.  With  the  appearance  of  Mr  Cole  a  very  material 
change  comes  over  the  whole  affair;  he  was  a  man  of 
considerable  historical  reading  who  was  not  likely  to 
commit  himself  too  openly  to  the  rather  wild  statements 
of  his  predecessors;  therefore  much  of  the  mediaeval 
idealism  was  dropped ;  it  was  felt  that  the  truth  about  the 
mediaeval  gild  was  after  all  a  minor  problem,  if  attention 
was  to  be  concentrated  on  improvement  in  modern  con- 
ditions, and,  though  the  Middle  Ages  were  still  recognised 
as  the  original  source  of  inspiration,  it  was  laid  down  quite 
clearly  that  the  emphasis  was  to  be  on  adaptation  and  not 
on  mere  imitation,  that,  though  the  mediaeval  gild  would 
not  meet  the  needs  of  modern  industry,  it  might  provide 
suggestions  for  what  is  really  to  be  a  new  organism 
specially  devised  to  administer  the  industrial  world  after  the 

251 


MEDIi^VAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

elimination  of  private  capitalist  ownership.  All  the  workers 
concerned  in  a  particular  type  of  industry,  in  coal-mining, 
in  railway  transport,  or  in  cotton  manufacture,  for  example, 
are  to  be  gathered  into  a  national  guild  which  is  to  include 
those  who  work  with  their  brains  as  well  as  those  who 
work  with  their  hands;  and  these  guilds  are  gradually 
to  be  evolved  out  of  the  existing  trade  unions,  so  soon  as 
they  can  be  persuaded  to  reorganise  themselves  on  indus- 
trial instead  of  on  craft  lines.  The  factories,  or  the  mines, 
or  the  railways  are  to  be  owned  by  the  State,  that  is,  by 
the  community  at  large,  but  to  be  administered  and  con- 
trolled each  by  its  respective  guild;  while  the  whole 
organisation  of  the  guild  from  shop-foreman  up  to  central 
committee  is  to  be  based  on  democratic  election,  though 
it  is  recognised  that  experts  in  various  departments  must 
be  appointed  on  sound  business  principles,  and  not  as 
the  result  of  the  votes  of  their  fellow-workers.  Side  by 
side  with  this  industrial  organisation  of  producers,  there 
are  to  be  national  and  local  organisations  of  consumers 
and  producers  alike,  as  there  are  to-day — a  central  parlia- 
ment, municipal  authorities,  county  councils,  and  so  on,  and 
prices  are  to  be  regulated  by  the  guilds  in  conjunction  with 
these  local  or  national  governmental  bodies.  At  the  basis 
of  the  whole  edifice,  as  the  prime  motive  for  any  industrial 
action.  Cole  sees  the  principle  of  free  social  service,  of 
work  not  for  private  profit  but  for  the  community  at  large. 

This  guild  socialism  tacitly  recognises  that  trade  unions, 
as  they  exist  at  present,  are  dying  institutions,  that  they 
are  essentially  bound  up  with  the  wages  system,  and  that, 
having  achieved  what  they  set  out  to  do,  they  are  liable 
to  embark  on  all  sorts  of  new  ventures  and  extravagant 
claims  in  order  to  retain  the  active  adherence  of  their 
members;  to  this  guild  socialism  says,  by  implication  and 
252 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

only  very  deferentially,  for  of  the  support  of  the  trade  unions 
it  has  great  hopes :  "  If  you  will  reconstruct  the  world, 
you  must  first  reconstruct  yourselves;  provide  yourselves 
with  a  new  organisation  and,  what  is  far  more  difficult, 
provide  your  members  with  a  new  and  more  efficient 
stimulus  to  labour." 

Merits  this  new  idea  of  guild  socialism  has  in  plenty, 
but  this  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  them ;  it  will  be  sufficient 
to  point  out  the  vast  difference  that  exists  between  these 
guilds  and  the  mediaeval  ones :  the  mere  accident  that 
these  guilds  are  national,  and  the  earlier  ones  local,  is 
after  all  not  the  most  vital  distinction;  that  lies  in  the 
equality  of  every  member  of  the  guild  and  the  democratic 
government  of  the  industry  as  a  whole,  for  it  is  very  doubtful 
if  there  ever  was  for  any  length  of  time  in  mediaeval  craft- 
gilds  either  equality  or  democracy,  as  we  understand 
those  terms.  But,  though  this  sketch  of  the  proposed 
guilds  shows  many  other  obvious  differences  in  matters 
of  organisation  from  the  mediaeval  gilds,  yet  one  must 
not  be  blinded  to  the  share  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  this 
guild  socialism  movement,  for  it  arose  out  of  a  study  of 
mediceval  economic  and  social  history,  and  it  still  retains 
a  considerable  number  of  essential  qualities  which  were 
fondly  believed  by  its  originators  to  be  derived  from  the 
craft-gilds  of  the  fourteenth  century. 

By  the  arguments  that  I  have  developed  and  the  examples 
that  I  have  quoted  during  the  course  of  this  paper  I  have 
tried  to  show  the  really  vital  bearing  that  mediasval  economic 
history  has  upon  the  most  intimate  and  important  aspects 
of  our  modern  life;  how  mediaeval  industrial  and  commercial 
methods  are  surviving  even  down  to  the  present  day; 
how  a  study  of  these  dead  institutions  and  discredited 
theories  has  led  men  to  find  good  in  them,  to  see  remedies 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

for  some  of  our  most  pressing  economic  problems ;  how 
almost  every  institution  that  we  have,  industrial  or  com- 
mercial, financial  or  agricultural,  owes  something  to  the 
Middle  Ages,  how  its  present  shape  has  been  determined 
not  only  by  the  hands  of  time,  but  also  by  the  nature  of 
the  original  clay  from  which  it  was  moulded. 

But  such  an  argument  as  this,  while  possibly  curious 
in  itself,  would  be  arid  indeed,  were  not  the  just  moral 
drawn  from  it.  It  was  that  moral  with  which  we  started, 
and  to  it  we  return,  and  we  return  the  more  readily  because 
just  at  present  it  is  of  vital  importance  to  bear  it  in  mind. 
Our  universities  are  turning  out  scores  of  people — mostly 
earnest  young  women — who  have  gained  a  smattering  of 
historical  knowledge,  and  are  possessed  with  the  determina- 
tion to  do  their  duty  by  the  world,  whether  the  world 
likes  it  or  not ;  and  the  spirit  of  the  age  leads  their  minds 
to  the  study  of  economic  and  social  problems.  But  all 
they  will  consent  to  listen  to  are  the  most  modern  thinkers 
on  the  most  modern  topics,  and  the  more  diffuse  the  thinker 
the  better  they  like  him.  If  we  suggest  to  them  that  some 
foundation  may  be  necessar)'-,  some  real  knowledge  of  the 
past  desirable,  they  scornfully  remind  us  that  basements 
have  gone  out  of  fashion,  that  we  live  in  a  rapid  age  when 
the  arduous  spade-work  necessary  to  foundations  is  no 
longer  esteemed.  Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead.  They 
want  to  produce  something  modern,  and  to  produce  it 
now. 

And  so  it  is  to  them  that  I  would  give  my  moral,  though 
I  doubt  if  they  ever  listen  nowadays  to  such  mid- Victorian 
things:  let  them  ever  remember  that  the  past  must  be 
studied  if  the  present  will  be  understood,  for  it  is  out  of 
the  past  that  the  present  has  been  made. 

E.  R.  Adair 
254 


X 

POLITICS 

I  HAVE  been  asked  to  speak  of  the  political  conception"^! 
of  the  Middle  Ages  under  a  heading  which  implies 
that  those  conceptions  are,  or  have  been,  contributions 
to  our  modern  civilisation.  I  do  not  know  in  what  sense 
that  is  so.  Everything  that  we  are  and  have  has  developed 
from  the  Europe  of  the  mediaeval  period,  with  some 
additional  assistance  direct  from  the  world  of  Greece  and 
of  Rome.  But  that  fact  hardly  helps  me.  The  Middle 
Ages  do  indeed  contribute  directly  to  our  civilisation  a 
wonderful  legacy  of  artistic  achievement,  of  which  we,  in 
the  last  few  centuries,  have  largely  proved  ourselves  un- 
worthy. But  when  I  come  to  political  thought  I  am  at  a 
loss  what  to  say  in  this  connexion.  All  I  can  do  is  to  ask 
the  question,  What  value  have,  or  may  have,  the  political 
ideas  of  the  Middle  Ages  for  us  here  and  now  ?  I  can 
ask  this  question,  but  I  cannot  answer  it. 

There  is  an  initial  difficulty.  I  might  ignore  it,  but  I 
do  not  feel  disposed  to  do  so.  I  do  not  know  what  is 
meant  by  mediaeval  political  thought.  If  what  is  meant  is 
all  that  was  thought  about  politics  as  such  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  I  don't  know  where  to  begin.  The  more  I  study 
the  writings  of  those  times  the  more  I  become  convinced 
that  most  of  the  questions  that  have  been  asked  since  the 
fifteenth  century  were  asked  then,  and  that  most  of  the 
political  ideas  developed  in  modern  times  are  to  be  found 

'^55 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

there.  In  fact,  speaking  generally,  such  study  of  the 
history  of  political  thought  as  I  have  been  able  to  make 
is  gradually  producing  in  me  a  conviction  that  ever  since 
men  began  to  think  in  general  terms  they  have  been  ask- 
ing much  the  same  questions  and  giving  much  the  same 
answers.  The  differences  between  the  questions  and 
answers  of  one  age  and  those  of  another  are  very  frequently 
differences  of  form  rather  than  of  content.  And  specifically 
with  regard  to  the  Middle  Ages  I  get  an  impression  that 
the  more  one  looks  the  more  one  finds.  I  have,  for  a 
long  time,  been  telling  my  pupils  that  the  theory  of  climate 
expounded  by  Jean  Bodin  in  the  sixteenth  century  was 
practically  a  new  thing;  that  there  is  nothing  similar  to  be 
found  earlier  except  in  some  mere  suggestions  in  Aristotle 
and  Plato.  My  excuse  is  that  the  books  say  so;  but  it 
is  not  true.  A  theory  of  climate  in  Bodin's  sense  is 
explicit — I  do  not  say  fully  developed — but  quite  explicit 
in  the  writings  of  Pierre  Dubois  very  early  in  the  four- 
teenth century.  How  much  further  it  may  go  back  I  do 
not  know. 

Many  people  I  am  sure  are  under  a  quite  wrong  impres- 
sion about  it.  People  talk  sometimes  as  though  all  through 
the  Middle  Ages  men  kept  saying  the  same  things  or 
nearly  the  same  things.  The  fact  is,  I  think,  far  other- 
wise. Even  if  we  take  the  term  Middle  Ages  in  its  narrow- 
est sense  as  covering  the  period  from  the  eleventh  to  the 
fifteenth  century,  we  shall  find  change  everywhere  going 
on,  and  everywhere  irreconcilable  differences.  There  is  a 
great  change  from  the  views  of  Hildebrand  and  his  followers 
of  the  twelfth  century  to  the  views  of  Aquinas  in  the 
thirteenth,  and  between  Aquinas  and  William  of  Occam 
perhaps  a  still  greater  change.  This  is  a  change  that 
takes  place  in  the  thought  of  a  series  of  men  who  all  have 
256 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

the  same  kind  of  ecclesiastical  bias  and  training,  and  who 
are  asking  the  same  questions  as  to  the  nature  of  secular 
authority  and  its  relation  to  the  Church.  If  we  go  outside 
this  circle  we  come  at  once  to  the  sharpest  antagonisms. 
Between  the  views  of  Aquinas  and  of  Pierre  Dubois  a 
great  gulf  is  fixed.  In  truth,  I  think,  the  Middle  Ages, 
in  this  as  in  other  things,  are  a  period  of  harsh  and  violent 
contrasts,  of  contradictions  more  hopeless,  perhaps,  thark 
exist  among  modern  thinkers. 

There  are,  of  course,  modern  ideas  you  cannot  possibly 
find  in  the  Middle  Ages.  But  theories  of  the  sovereignty 
of  the  people  are  there;  and  Marsilio — and  not  Marsilio 
only — uses  language,  at  times,  that  oddly  suggests 
Rousseau.  The  conception  of  society  and  of  government 
as  a  co-operative  effort  to  realise  merely  temporal  and 
material  ends  is  in  Dubois;  and  Dubois  represents,  I  am 
sure,  the  views  of  many  other  people  besides  the  ministers 
of  Philip  IV.  And  if  you  want  to  find  in  the  Middle  Ages 
the  very  latest  thing  in  Bolshevist  communism,  you  have 
only  to  look  at  the  record  of  John  Ball,  the  mad  priest  of 
Kent,  who  preached  on  Blackheath  in  1381,  or  at  what 
is  called  the  confession  of  Jack  Straw. 

We  are  too  much  inclined  to  take  the  writings  of 
ecclesiastics,  of  schoolmen,  of  the  professed  philosophers, 
as  expressing  the  whole  thought  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
Professed  philosophers  never  do  represent  rightly  the 
current  thought  of  their  time.  The  point  of  view  of  these 
writers  is  at  once  too  detached  and  too  ecclesiastical. 
The  difficulty  is  that  the  mass  of  lay  opinion  on  these 
subjects  in  the  Middle  Ages  rarely  found  expression. 
There  was,  it  is  true,  a  school  of  juristic  philosophy. 
But  we  get  only  fragmentary  glimpses  of  the  views  of 
the   governing   statesmen    of  the    twelfth   and   thirteenth 

R  257 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

centuries,  of  the  men  in  England  who  worked  under 
Henry  II,  of  the  men  who  surrounded  Henry  III,  and 
of  whom  Grosseteste  wrote  that  they  it  was  who  were 
hostile  to  the  Church  and  determined  the  impious  and 
secularising  policy  of  the  Government.  Yet  these  men 
had  views,  however  unformulated  or  confused;  but  only 
their  deeds  speak  for  them.  When,  as  in  the  writings 
of  Pierre  Dubois,  you  get  as  it  were  a  sudden  revelation 
of  the  ways  of  thinking  of  such  men — and  this,  I  believe, 
is  the  case — ^you  get  a  shock  and  exclaim :  "  How  un- 
mediaeval  !  "  and  even  "  How  modern  1  "  Modern  if 
vou  like,  but  not  unmediaeval.  Just  so  when  Machiavelli 
formulates,  though  very  imperfectly,  the  assumptions  and 
the  perceptions  that  had  governed  political  action  in  Italy 
more  and  more  for  the  last  two  hundred  years,  we  declare 
that  he  is  the  first  of  the  moderns.  I  will  add  this  :  that  the 
further  you  go  into  the  thought  of  the  sixteenth  century 
the  more  mediaeval  you  will  find  it.  In  England,  in  the 
last  years  of  the  century.  Hooker  is  reproducing  the  views 
of  Aquinas  almost  as  fully  as  Suarez  the  Jesuit  in  the  early 
seventeenth  century.  So  far  as  there  comes  a  real  break- 
away from  all  mediaeval  conceptions,  it  occurs,  I  think,  in 
ihe  seventeenth  century,  with  Hobbes  and  Vico. 

If  we  wish  to  understand  the  thought  of  any  political 
•DT  any  other  sort  of  thinker,  it  is  first  of  all  necessary  to 
make  clear  to  ourselves  what  question  or  questions  he  is 
trying  to  answer.  I  have  painful  memories  of  candidates 
for  honours  who  appear  to  think  that  the  difference  between 
Aristotle  and  Plato  is  that  Aristotle  was  thinking  about 
things  and  Plato  about  nothing.  Such  candidates  are  con- 
founding the  actual  with  the  real,  and  have  not  reached 
the  starting-point  of  philosophy.  And  people  make  the 
same  mistake  about  the  mediaeval  thinkers.  Plainly  they 
258 


TO   MODERN  CIVILISATION 

are  not,  most  of  them,  writing  about  any  existing  state 
or  about  any  state  that  ever  had  existed.  After  all,  how 
could  they  ?  In  the  political  welter  of  the  earlier  Middle 
Ages  they  could  not  discern  any  distinct  outline  of  any  state 
at  all,  unless  it  were  Christendom  itself;  and  that,  visibly, 
was  not  actually  a  state.  Gradually,  indeed,  outlines 
emerged  and  became  more  or  less  distinct,  and  when  a 
writer  in  the  fourteenth  century  uses  the  word  '  emperor  ' 
he  frequently  uses  it,  as  does  Marsilio,  to  mean  simply  the 
secular  authority  anywhere  as  contrasted  with  the  Church. 
But  the  earlier  mediaeval  schoolman  is  forced  to  disregard 
the  actual  by  the  nature  of  the  actual  in  his  time.  What 
he  is  concerned  with  are  the  fundamental  questions  that 
do  not  change  with  circumstance. 

It  is  a  mistake,  I  think,  to  regard  mediaeval  scholasticism 
in  politics  as  Aristotelian.  The  schoolman  of  the  thirteenth 
century  felt  great  reverence  for  Aristotle.  He  studied 
Aristotle  as  minutely  as  he  could,  and  quoted  and  referred 
to  him  constantly.  But  I  do  not  think  he  ever  understood 
Aristotle.  He  treated  the  Greek  philosopher's  writings  as 
a  collection  of  texts  which  could  be  detached  from  their 
context  and  separately  made  use  of:  just  as  many  people 
have  treated  the  Bible.  In  this  way  he  at  once  avoided  all 
danger  of  assimilating  or  even  understanding  Aristotle's 
thought,  and  was  enabled  to  adopt  his  maxims  and  fit 
them  in  to  his  own  system.  Nor  did  he  hesitate,  when  he 
came  upon  a  particularly  tough  and  indigestible  extract, 
to  assert  that  here  the  philosopher  was  wrong.  The 
schoolmen  seem  to  me  to  have  got  little  from  Aristotle, 
for  all  their  talk  of  him.  They  Platonised  him  and  they 
Christianised  him,  but  they  never  understood  him.  Aquinas 
in  some  aspects  is  a  Stoic,  in  some  a  Neoplatonist,  never  an 
Aristotelian. 

259 


MEDIAEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

In  the  main,  so  far  as  there  exists  real  difference  between 
the  political  thought  of  one  age  and  another,  this  difference 
is  a  consequence  of  the  fact  that  in  one  age  a  particular 
question  is  asked  more  frequently  and  insistently  than  in 
another.  The  difference  is  a  difference  of  subject.  Most 
questions  are  asked,  perhaps,  in  most  ages;  but  in  one  age 
the  stress  is  on  one,  in  another  on  another.  The  difference 
between  the  thought  of  two  periods  becomes  profound  only 
when  questions  are  asked  in  one  that  could  not  have  been 
put  in  the  other. 

Now,  at  last,  I  am  coming  to  the  essential  subject  of  what 
so  far  may  have  seemed  a  rambling  discourse.  I  may  put 
it  thus.  What  questions  were  asked  in  the  Middle  Ages 
that  we  should  do  well  to  ask  now  more  often  than  we  do  ? 
And  what  answers  given  to  such  questions  by  mediaeval 
thinkers  have  or  may  have  a  real  value  for  us  ? 

It  is  not  the  thought  of  men  like  Dubois  or  Marsilio 
that  has  positive  value  for  us  now :  it  is,  if  anything,  the 
thought,  above  all,  of  the  schoolmen  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  detached,  abstracted,  forced  into  asking  funda- 
mental questions  as  to  the  basis  of  the  State  in  a  chaotic 
world.  It  is  just  these  fundamental  questions  that  need 
to  be  asked  now  and  always.  They  are  as  unanswered  now 
as  they  were  then. 

The  main  questions  of  that  scholastic  thought  of  the 
thirteenth  century  seem  to  have  been  these.  What  is  the 
nature  of  obligation  as  between  man  and  man,  and,  in 
connexion  with  and  dependence  on  that,  what  is  the  nature 
of  political  obligation  }  What  is  the  purpose  which 
justifies  to  reason  all  that  we  mean  by  government  ?  Or, 
in  other  words,  what  is  the  true  function  of  government  ? 
And,  finally,  what  is  the  character  of  that  state  the  reali- 
sation of  which  will  satisfy  man's  needs  and  aspirations  ? 
260 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

This  last  is  the  question  Plato  had  asked  in  The  Republic, 
These  questions,  though  not  exactly  in  the  form  I  have 
given  them,  are  raised  at  every  point  in  the  writings  of  the 
twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries.  The  question  of  the 
extent  of  civil  authority  and  law-making  power  was  wholly 
bound  up  with  the  question  as  to  moral  obligation  in 
general.  The  controversy  as  to  the  relations  between  Pope 
and  Emperor,  stripped  of  its  non-essentials,  was  a  con- 
troversy as  to  the  end  and  purpose  of  life  on  earth. 

The  answer  given  by  the  schoolmen  to  these  questions 
was  a  complete  and  coherent  whole.  It  began  with  the 
assertion  of  the  real  existence  of  what  was  called  natural 
law.  The  term  was  a  very  old  one.  It  had  come  down 
from  the  Latin  Stoics,  and  to  the  Fathers  of  the  Church 
in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  it  connoted  much  what  it 
did  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The  Fathers  repeat  continually 
that  natural  law  is  in  the  heart  of  all  men,  "  written  in  the 
hearts  of  the  Gentiles,"  in  the  phrase  of  St  Paul.  To  the 
Fathers,  though  not  to  the  true  Stoics,  natural  law  is 
wholly  a  moral  law,  a  law  of  conduct.  It  is  a  God-given 
intuition  of  the  absolute  good. 

The  idea,  in  the  Fathers,  is  a  little  vague  and  unrelated. 
In  the  thirteenth  century  it  is  much  fuller.  There  are, 
says  Aquinas,  three  modes  in  which  God  reveals  Himself: 
one  direct  and  verbal,  in  the  Scriptures,  given  once  for  all ; 
the  other  two  continuous  and  unceasing,  one  in  visible 
non-human  nature,  the  other  in  the  heart  and  conscience 
of  man.  The  Lex  Mterna^  the  plan  of  the  world  in  the 
mind  of  God,  he  likens  to  the  design  of  an  unbuilt  building 
in  the  mind  of  the  architect.  It  is  that  to  which  all  things 
move  incessantly,  and  it  is  that  by  which  they  move.  It 
can  be  known  in  its  entirety  to  no  man.  But  there  is  in 
every    man  a  conscious  participation  in   the  eternal   law 

261 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

a  partial  consciousness  of  it,  a  sense  of  what  he  ought  and 
ought  not  to  do.  This  intuition  as  to  right  and  wrong,  this 
intuition  of  the  Absolute,  is  formulated  by  reason  as  the 
law  of  nature.  So  far  as  man  adheres  to  that  law,  so  far  his 
will  becomes  one  with  the  will  of  God  in  the  everlasting  act 
of  creation. 

The  term  *  natural  law,'  then,  implies  and  involves  a 
philosophy  of  the  absolute  good :  an  assertion  that  right  and 
wrong  exist  in  the  nature  of  things  unalterably.  If  there 
be  any  conception  eminently  characteristic  of  mediaeval 
political  thought  it  is  this.  It  is  true  that  already  in  the 
fourteenth  century  the  idea  is  losing  its  grip  on  men's 
minds ;  it  is  fading.  Natural  law  means  little  to  Marsilio  : 
it  means  nothing  at  all  to  Dubois.  To  Occam — well,  I  am 
not  sure  what  it  meant  to  that  very  difficult  and  uncom- 
promising intellectualist.  But  on  his  own  metaphysical 
premises,  if  I  understand  them  aright,  it  should  have 
meant  nothing  at  all.  But  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries  this  conception  of  natural  law  dominates  political 
thought.  In  relation  to  the  State  men  find  in  it  at  once  a 
basis  for  law,  a  limitation  on  authority,  and  a  purpose  for 
government.  Logically  it  must  have  been  so,  for  if  the 
State  does  not  create  right,  right  must  create  the  State. 

"  All  human  law,"  says  Aquinas — I  am  translating  from 
the  Summa — '*  precisely  to  the  extent  to  which  it  partakes 
of  right  reason,  is  derived  from  the  eternal  law,"  that  is, 
of  course,  by  way  of  the  law  of  nature.  And  again  : 
**  Every  law  framed  by  man  has  the  character  of  true  law  " 
— that  is,  creates  obligation — "  exactly  to  that  extent  to 
which  it  is  derived  from  the  law  of  nature."  He  will  not 
admit  that  obligation  to  obedience  can  be  derived  other- 
wise. Law  must  be  derived  from  the  general  moral 
consciousness,  and  enactment  inconsistent  with  that  has 
262 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

no  binding  force.  The  most  he  will  admit  is  that,  "  for 
avoidance  of  scandal  or  disorder,"  it  may  be  right  to  obey 
unjust  law. 

It  follows  that  there  can  be  no  law  binding  on  the  con- 
science save  that  which  is  directed  to  the  common  welfare. 
"  Law  must  be  enacted,"  says  Aquinas,  "  for  the  common 
welfare  of  men,  and  failing  this  it  has  no  binding  power." 
If  a  ruler,  he  goes  on  to  say,  makes,  or  rather  tries  to  make, 
law  "  for  the  gratification  of  his  own  cupidity  or  vain- 
glory," his  enactments  must  be  regarded  as  acts  of  violence 
rather  than  as  laws.  But  he  insists  that  if  law  be  ordained 
for  the  common  welfare  and  be  consistent  with  the  moral 
consciousness,  it  creates  obligation  and  is  binding  absolutely. 
And  this  because  every  man  is  bound  by  the  natural  law  to 
will  and  to  work  for  the  common  welfare.  I  translate  his 
words  once  more — words,  this  time,  that  recall  the  Contrat 
Social  oi  Rousseau :  "  For  as  any  one  man  is  part  of  a  multi- 
tude, all  that  every  man  has  or  is  belongs  to  the  multitude." 

But  Aquinas  goes  further.  So  clearly  does  he  see  law  as 
the  expression  of  a  common  moral  consciousness  that  he 
asserts  that  law  may  be  made  and  obligation  created  '*  by 
repeatedly  multiplied  acts,  which  make  a  custom,"  since 
"  the  reason  and  will  of  man  is  manifested  in  deed  no  less 
than  in  word."  And  similarly  law  made  by  enactment 
may  be  abnegated  by  "  repeatedly  multiplied  acts  "  in  a 
contrary  sense.  There  can,  in  fact,  exist  no  binding  law 
which  is  not  an  expression  of  man's  sense  of  right. 

But  it  was  not  enough  to  conceive  of  law  and  of  govern- 
ment as  expressions  of  the  moral  consciousness  and  based 
on  the  law  of  nature.  Law  and  government  must,  to 
justify  themselves  in  the  court  of  reason,  be  referred  to  a 
common  end.  And  so  the  thirteenth-century  thinkers 
elaborate  the  conception  of  an  ultimate  and  absolute  end 

263 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

and  purpose  of  life  for  all  humanity.  To  this  end  all 
politics,  all  law  and  government,  must  necessarily  be 
referred.  For  if  there  be  such  an  end  and  purpose  of  life 
for  all  men,  it  follows  that  all  government  must  have  this 
end  in  view  constantly  and  universally.  This  proposition 
is,  by  itself,  undeniable.  But  the  specific  mediaeval 
assertion  in  regard  to  the  question  is  twofold.  Firstly,  it 
is  asserted,  or  assumed  as  too  obvious  for  assertion,  that 
failure  to  recognise  such  a  meaning  and  purpose  in  life 
leaves  all  government  purposeless,  and  means  for  society 
friction,  waste,  and  chaos.  And,  secondly,  it  is  asserted 
that  the  end  and  purpose  of  life  cannot  rationally  be  con- 
ceived as  lying  within  the  sharp  edges  of  this  material 
world.  It  must  be  conceived  as  transcending  this  world. 
Nothing,  in  fact,  short  of  real  and  vital  union  with  God 
will  suffice  to  satisfy  man  and  realise  his  potentialities.  In 
any  case  the  purpose  of  man's  life  cannot  rationally  be 
conceived  in  relation  to  any  merely  circumstantial  and 
accidental  needs  or  desires  or  in  relation  to  anything 
merely  external  and  temporary,  but  only  suh  specie  ater- 
ni  talis. 

It  is,  of  course,  the  Church,  at  least  in  the  view  of  the 
ecclesiastics  and  scholastics  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries,  that  is  the  final  authority  as  to  the  proper  good 
of  man.  It  is  argued,  therefore,  that  it  is  for  the  Church 
to  judge  of  and  to  direct  all  State  action.  The  distinc- 
tion between  temporal  and  spiritual  disappears  before  the 
definition  of  a  common  purpose  and  an  ultimate  end  for  all 
forms  of  activity.  Law  and  government  can,  it  is  asserted, 
be  of  real  value  only  in  so  far  as  they  conduce  to  the  reali- 
sation of  the  purpose  of  each  and  every  individual  soul. 
Therefore,  to  the  Hildebrandine  school  of  the  twelfth 
century,  the  Emperor  becomes  a  mere  sword  in  the  Church's 
264 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

hand,  a  chief  of  police,  a  justitiarius  under  the  Pope. 
Any  secular  Government  that  claims  independence  of  the 
Church  can  base  its  claim  only  on  an  assertion  that  the  end 
of  man  can  be  realised  in  this  life  and  in  relation  to  mere 
earthly  and  temporal  needs.  At  the  least  it  must  claim 
real  value  for  the  things  of  this  world.  But  no  real  value 
attaches  to  the  things  of  this  world  in  themselves.  Real 
values  are  spiritual  and  transcendental.  The  claim  of 
secular  powers  to  independence  is  blasphemy  and  of  the 
devil. 

This  is  twelfth-century  doctrine.  In  the  thirteenth 
century  men  begin  to  see  things  differently.  Aquinas 
finds  a  real  basis  for  secular  government  in  the  fact  that 
peace  and  order  and  a  certain  minimum  of  material  well- 
being  are  necessities  of  the  spiritual  life  on  earth.  Yet  he 
too  insists  that  government  has  no  meaning  or  value  except 
in  so  far  as  it  conduces  to  that  apprehension  of  God  which 
is  the  end  of  man's  existence. 

The  mediaeval  empire  was  conceived  by  these  thinkers 
as  a  thing  very  different  from  that  which  we  are  accustomed 
to  associate  with  the  word.  It  was,  to  them,  all  but  an 
ecclesiastical  institution.  Their  idea  of  it  involved  the 
conception  of  a  common  purpose  in  human  life,  and  this 
purpose  involved,  ultimately  at  least,  an  escape  from  the 
bonds  of  the  material.  The  material  world  was  antagon- 
istic in  many  ways — not  in  every  way — to  man's  spiritual 
self-realisation.  The  essential  function  of  government  is 
one  of  release.  The  duty  of  the  secular  power  was  to 
create  and  maintain  conditions  favourable  to  spiritual 
development.  So  far  from  being  concerned  solely  with 
temporal  affairs  it  was  concerned  essentially  with  spiritual 
affairs.  For  this  very  reason  it  was  subordinate  to  the 
Church.      Its  business  was  so  to  order  the  temporal  as  to 

265 


MEDIEVAL  CONTRIBUTIONS 

strengthen  man's  hold  on  the  eternal.  Coming  after 
Aquinas,  John  of  Paris  sees  no  need  of  an  emperor  at  all. 
But  he  sees  that  secular  government  has  a  reason  for  exist- 
ence. And  emperor  or  no  emperor,  all  secular  govern- 
ment must  be  directed  by  the  same  final  purpose. 

And  so  we  come  to  the  last  word  in  this  system  of 
politics :  the  idea  of  a  world-state,  based  on  the  moral 
consciousness  of  mankind  and  on  the  recognition  of  a 
common  end  of  existence.  That  ideal  world-state  could 
be  called  indifferently,  in  the  language  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, respublica  generis  humani  or  ecclesia  universalis.  But, 
granted  the  premises,  nothing  less  will  suffice,  logically  or 
morally.  For  the  purpose  is  the  same  everywhere ;  the 
end  of  living  is  the  same  for  all  human  beings ;  the  real 
interests  of  all  men  are  the  same,  or  rather  man  has  only  one 
real  interest.  The  desire  of  man  is  for  completeness  and 
for  happiness.  Neither  can  be  realised  here;  but  so  far 
as  realisation  is  possible  on  earth  it  is  only  in  a  world-state 
that  it  is  possible. 

Already  in  the  fourteenth  century  this  system  of  ideas 
is  breaking  up.  On  one  side  its  metaphysical  foundations 
are  being  attacked  if  not  destroyed  by  the  analytic  intellects 
of  Duns  Scotus  and  of  Occam.  On  another  the  new 
national  states,  territorial  and  racialised  groupings,  are 
emerging  to  self-consciousness,  striving  for  independence, 
and  drawing  men's  thoughts  more  and  more  to  actuality. 
Gradually  it  is  becoming  apparent  that  Christendom  is 
not  a  unity :  that,  in  fact,  there  is  no  Christendom  at  all.  It 
had  always  been  so.  Christendom  was  a  figment  born  of 
the  incurable  optimism  of  humanity.  Already  in  Italy  is 
going  on  that  separation  of  politics  from  morals  which 
finds  verbal  expression  in  Machiavelli.  The  process  goes 
on  and  on;  till  in  the  seventeenth  century  Hobbes  is  able 
266 


TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

to  declare  that  the  natural  relation  of  any  two  states  is  war, 
and  that  natural  law  is  simply  that  law  of  reason  which 
forbids  a  man  to  do  anything  that  impairs  or  will  impair 
his  security  in  the  pursuit  of  pleasurable  sensation. 
Gradually  the  whole  system  was  sapped,  and  crumbled  at 
its  foundation ;  the  belief,  that  is,  in  a  natural  law  of  obliga- 
tion. Though  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century  Locke 
still  believes  in  natural  law,  the  belief  was  being  replaced. 
There  was  an  increasing  tendency  to  get  rid  of  the  trans- 
cendental element  in  morals,  and  to  fall  back  on  some  form 
of  utilitarianism.  So  also  there  was  an  increasing  tendency 
to  reject  the  idea  of  a  transcendental  purpose  or  end  of 
human  existence,  and  to  seek  a  sufficient  purpose  for  life 
within  the  walls  of  matter.  Mechanical  explanations  of 
life  and  the  universe  had  their  vogue,  and  along  with  all 
that  went  an  increase  of  pure  scepticism. 

But  there  was  always  reaction ;  and  it  has,  I  think, 
strengthened  in  the  last  century.  We  have  still  with  us 
a  philosophy  of  the  absolute  good.  To  say  that  the 
mediaeval  conception  of  natural  law  and  of  a  transcendental 
purpose  in  life  was  demonstrably  false  would,  I  think, 
be  demonstrably  silly.  There  has  been  for  a  long  time 
past  a  tendency  to  return  to  the  mediaeval  conception  of 
society  as  an  expression  of  the  moral  consciousness.  Equally 
is  there  now  a  tendency  to  turn  toward  the  idea  of  a  world- 
state.  We  are  perhaps  drawing  nearer  to  the  thought  of 
the  Middle  Ages. 

I  suggest  not  merely  that  any  separation  of  politics  from 
ethics  is  fatal,  but  that  a  society  which  has  lost  belief  in 
the  validity  of  its  own  moral  intuitions  rests  on  rotting 
foundations.  I  suggest,  further,  that  the  idea  that  govern- 
ment must  be  directed  to  a  recognised,  common,  and 
ultimate  end,  and  refer  to  a  standard  of  absolute  values 

267 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  MODERN  CIVILISATION 

or  be  radically  purposeless,  is  perfectly  sound.  The  end, 
perhaps,  need  not  transcend  this  world.  It  may  be  possible 
to  find  a  purpose  referring  only  to  this  world  that  will 
satisfy  the  soul  of  man.  But  I  suggest  that  no  such  end 
has  yet  been  found. 

We  can  strip  from  the  mediaeval  system  of  ideas  that  I 
have  tried  to  define  in  outline  all  that  is  not  essential  to  it. 
We  can  eliminate  the  Church  altogether,  and  it  will  still 
stand  logically  coherent.  It  is  a  question — it  is  perhaps 
the  question — whether  we  can  also  eliminate  God. 

It  may  be  that  our  civilisation  is  slipping  down  toward 
chaos  and  dissolution.  Personally,  I  am  under  the  im- 
pression that  things  are  not  so  bad  as  that  yet;  but  I  am 
well  aware  that  no  man's  impression  on  such  a  matter  is 
worth  much.  But  I  do  believe  that  we  may  yet  learn 
from  the  mediaeval  thinkers.  We  need  to  consider  what 
we,  the  State,  are  at,  and  why  we  are  at  it.  Man  never 
has  known  what  he  wants;  but  he  won't  be  happy  till  he 

gets  it. 

J.  W.  Allen 


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